Roommates
by SteelxPaladin
Summary: Eren is looking forward for High School, not to mention that he is excited to meet his roommate. Well, his expectations aren't exactly met in first place. [Eren x Annie, some other ships also included, High School AU]
1. First Day

**Hello! Welcome to my second Shingeki no Kyojin fanfiction! Yes, I know that I already have an ongoing story, but I couldn't help myself to put this down on a doc. It might be a written disaster, nonetheless.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of its characters featured in this story.**

**...**

Eren grinned largely upon turning to his right side, his sneakers emitting a high-pitched screech due to his sudden spin. He rearranged his luggage on his back to prevent it from slipping off his shoulders, ignoring the weight of his bag. His expression was nearing the levels of being childish, his gleaming emeralds eyeing the scene before him with an enthusiastic gaze. "We're here, guys! We are in high school!"

Mikasa barely changed her expression, throwing a ghost of a smile behind her bright red scarf towards her brother. Armin, on the other hand, tried to join his best friend's excitement by placing a hand on his shoulder and looking in the same direction Eren endlessly watched, mouth curling in a shy smile.

Before the trio, was a large, almost invitingly doorway leading to a much bigger hallway. Painted in a comforting beige, the walls stretched their way to a far away end, illuminated by ceiling bubs high above. It divided itself in multiple doors, all of them wide open. With the exception of a few which were closed shut. The hall was completely populated by hundreds of students, some bearing their bags, some not, all of them walking with their eyes constantly reading the plates stuck next to the respective room's door.

"C'mon! Let's go!" Eren exclaimed, placing an arm around Armin's shoulder to force the blonde into a walk.

Eren quickly let go of his friend the moment he felt that he was already moving by his side. Mikasa joined him in a light pace, buttoning her brown jacket after a rather chilling breeze coming from God knows where made the three teens shiver unconsciously. Eren simply pulled the sleeves of his pitch-black hoodie until they covered his pale hands. Armin seemed to be quite comfortable in his white sweater, barely doing anything rather than placing his gloved hands over his mouth to diminish the growing feeling of ice forming around his lips. And so they walked by each other's side through the over-populated hallway.

Oh, did they love this season of the year. Autumn.

A thought passed through Mikasa's mind, making her tug at Eren's long sleeve to get his attention.

"Have you still got the paper with your room's number on it, Eren?"

"Why wouldn't I have it, Mikasa?" Eren replied, sticking his hand in his hoodie's pocket and pulling out a small sheet of paper, kneaded completely.

The green-eyed boy looked at his paper after unfolding it, taking some time to register the numbers written on it due to how messed the paper was. "Umm... I'm in room 99..." He gazed up and then to his side, catching a glimpse of the nearest door's number, 57. "I guess it's on the end of the hallway."

"Oh, mine's 94." Armin came in the exact moment Eren finished his sentence, his face getting a tad sad from what he read. "Mikasa? What's yours?"

"94, too." The girl said with such precision that one could guess she spent hours memorizing the number.

"Well... it's sad that Eren won't be with us." Armin lowered his head, placing his paper in the pocket of his jeans. His voice had a faint hint of nervousness.

"Aw, c'mon guys!" Eren intervened, wrapping his arms around their necks. "Just because we aren't in the same room, it doesn't mean that we won't be able to see each other again! Right?"

He received brief nods from his friends. Eren kept smiling widely at every single direction his face turned too, the idea of being in such an interesting, not to mention new place was incredibly exciting for him. He never felt that being at a school would be so fun. So... exhilarating.

They passed one solid minute in silence, catching bits of small talk coming from the other students as they moved through the hallway. Eren and Mikasa were eyeing every single door they came across, and the numbers obviously increased with time. Finally, the trio found room 94. The door was closed, and locked. Mikasa fished in the breast pocket of her jacket and pulled out the key she had received earlier in the morning, unlocking the door effortlessly. It swung open, and Mikasa lead Armin inside. Before closing it, Mikasa looked at her brother:

"You should go to your room now, Eren. We'll meet in class, thankfully."

And with that, the door closed, leaving Eren alone in the crowded hall. He smiled to himself, thinking deeply about who was his roommate. He hoped he could get a nice friend, someone that had the same likes as him. Someone _cool._

He reached his designated room, which was bordering the end of the hall. He looked happily at the metallic '99' stuck to the door's surface. It was already closed, so Eren assumed that his roommate had yet to come, or that he was already inside doing something. Shrugging his thoughts off, Eren placed a hand on the cold doorknob and swung it open, proving to be unlocked.

It gave a quick creak before ceasing when Eren held it in place. The boy noticed that it consisted of a short hallway, splitting itself into a larger room just two steps from the door. He closed it with his foot and looked at the room before his eyes: A desk was placed on the left side, nearly empty with the exception of a book and a small pencil case laying on top of the wooden surface. It had a nearby armchair next to it. Eren could already see himself sitting on it for hours to make his homework with whoever was his roommate.

The floor was covered in bright wood, much to Eren's surprise. He changed his line of sight to the center of the room, where a small coffee table was situated at. There was also a couch, big enough to have at least three people sitting upright next to one another. On the wall opposite to Eren, was a window, covered in a white curtain that merely blocked the faint daylight coming from the outside. The room in itself was pleasantly cozy, and warm, considering the temperature outside. A long, deep breath echoed in the dorm as Eren took a few steps forward in the living room.

To his right side, he noticed a door, probably leading to the bedroom, but a counter caught his attention: The kitchen, he presumed. The counter only gave a tiny space for a single person to pass through, and even like that said person would have trouble moving in the suffocating space. He was quite pleased to see an oven, a simple snow-white fridge and a sink conveniently placed. A microwave, looking older than anything in the dorm, stood on top of the counter.

"Wow, this place is really neat!" Eren said to himself, then he swung his bag out of his back and held it tightly in his hand. _I better go to the bedroom. My roommate might be in there!_

He grinned madly and took himself to the doorway leading to the bedroom. The room was painted in a deep shade of blue, what added a more calm air to it. The two beds were set opposite to each other, leaving a hollow space between them that was only occupied by a bedside cabinet, supporting an alarm clock on top of it. A closet, the only one in the room, was leaned against the wall on the contrary side to the bedside cabinet.

Finishing his watch of the room, Eren looked down to see luggage set next to the bed situated to the right side of the room. Now there were no doubt left that his roommate was in fact inside the dorm. Dropping his bag on the feet of the left bed, Eren crouched and curiously craned his neck, enough to spot a closed door. _Oh. He might be in the bathroom. Guess I'll just unpack until he gets out._

Suddenly, the sound of hinges screaming filled the teen's ears. He shifted his gaze from his unzipped bag to where the noise came from, an expectant sparkle in his emerald orbs.

Well, what he saw didn't exactly meet his expectancies.

An incredibly short blonde girl emerged from the bathroom door, her gaze not meeting Eren's in first place. From what Eren noticed, her irises where of a light tone of blue, resembling the sky's color greatly. However, the expression spread across her features wasn't the most pleasant: Mouth closed shut, a curtain of golden locks hiding her right eye, a gaze that could extinguish the hottest of the flames on Earth. Her hands escaped from the pockets of the dark purple hoodie she was wearing right after she closed the door shut.

Eren shot up in the blink of an eye from his squatting position. He never ever thought of having a girl as his roommate, not to mention someone with such a bored face. Eren visibly shivered when she took notice of his presence inside the room, her expression not changing on the slightest. The boy took in a silent breath. He had to introduce himself to her.

"Hello!" He spoke up, a bit louder than his usual tone of voice.

"Hey." Wow, did her reply kill Eren's friendly look.

Eren tried his best to ignore the cold, freezing feeling brewing in his stomach with all of his strength. The words that left her mouth were... dead. Emotionless. His mind raced with a million thoughts about how screwed he was, stuck with such a happy person. _Well... I can't allow myself to give in with first impressions, right?_

He took a few steps to approach her, and the girl incredibly stood in place. Yes, maybe he shouldn't be seeing her as a gelid person. Eren shook off his thoughts out of his head and stuck out a hand in her direction. The blonde looked down at his palm with a seemingly skeptical shine in her eyes, but took it nonetheless. Despite how tiny her hand looked when holding his, Eren felt her strong grip.

"Eren Jaeger!"

"Annie Leonhardt."

The exchange of words was short, but enough for the duo to acknowledge one another's name. Eren looked up for a second in thought, as if trying to decide what he was going to say next.

"So, I take that you're my roommate, right?" Eren asked the clear obvious.

"I wouldn't be inside _our_ room if I wasn't." Her blunt reply came with a slight sparkle in her bright blue orbs. A sparkle of amusement caused by his idiotic question.

"Oh well... right." Eren replied, attempting to shrug off the weird moment.

"Before you ask, yes, we are in the same classroom, and I'm just going to tell you that there's a box under your bed. It says it's from your father." Annie quickly intervened and darted towards her bag, shuffling inside before taking out some thick notebooks and a light pink pencil case. "First period will start in-"

Her phrase was abruptly interrupted when a loud bell rang into the room, slightly muffled, but easily audible. Annie looked at Eren, as if ready to leave. "Well, hurry up. You wouldn't like to get late on your first day, would you, Jaeger?"

Eren literally teleported to his bag, leaning down enough to notice the cardboard box placed carefully under his new bed. There wasn't time to check inside now, so the boy simply fished momentarily inside his bag, pulling out the necessary for a day: Two notebooks and his pencil case. Considering that today was his first day, he wouldn't have to take all of his material.

"Of course I wouldn't, Leonhardt." Eren replied to her, standing up and moving next to the short blonde. He placed his material under his arm.

He failed to notice a single change of expression on her face after his rebuttal. Frowning slightly, Eren waited for Annie to take her move, but she seemed to be fishing in her pocket for something.

"Here." She suddenly came up carrying two shiny keys in her free pale hand. She dropped one of them when Eren stretched out his left arm to grab it. "Let's go already."

Eren nodded to no one in particular and followed her suit to the door. While he carried his possessions under his right arm, Annie preferred to hug her notebooks close to her chest, not that the green eyed teen cared. She opened the door and walked out, her blond curtain flying to the sides of her head when a cold breeze hit them. The girl simply pulled the bangs over her right eye again and waited for Eren to leave the room, locking the door the moment he stepped out.

"Hey! Eren! Over here!" A familiar voice called from behind, earning both Eren's and Annie's attention.

A hand rapidly waved in the air, turning out to be from no one than Armin. Mikasa was right by his side, holding her material with a curled arm. Armin's wave didn't cease until Eren started to move towards him, both boys grinning joyfully at each other. Annie gave a low sigh and followed her new roommate behind.

"Yo, Armin, Mikasa!" Eren cheerfully responded, spinning briefly on his heels to 'present' the petite girl coming from behind him. "It's good to meet you two. I would like to present you guys to Annie, my roommate."

"Hello." Annie solely said, already switching her notebooks to her left arm in case someone wanted to shake hands. Again.

"Oh, nice to meet you, Annie!" Armin politely greeted, sticking out his hand.

Annie rolled her eyes curtly before greeting both in a lightning fast motion. Much to the trio's surprise, Annie apologizes just as quickly and sets off half-running, leading her out of the dorm's hallway and on her way to the main hall. The three friends shared confused glances with each other, but put themselves to walk, nonetheless. As they moved, Eren couldn't help but to think deeply about how he would live in the same space with a girl such as Annie. _Hmph. I guess she's just having some 'new friends' awkwardness. She'll probably get more friendly with time._

**...**

A few moments after, Eren, Mikasa and Armin were already inside the classroom. It was a pleasant place, even if a certain teen didn't enjoy school much. The desks were comfortable, and the air in its whole was light. Not to mention cold, but that was due to the open window allowing currents of gelid air to enter the room. Most of the desks were still empty, save for Annie who decided to sit on the last row of the rightmost line by herself. Eren was sitting in the very middle of the class, with Mikasa on the desk behind him and Armin on his right side.

The two boys talked at a low timbre of voice with Mikasa quietly watching them, not noticing the ever-growing number of students entering the classroom. Minute after minute the classroom grew crowded. This was enough to make Eren's and Armin's chat to meet an end as they spin on their rears and face forwards, noticing that the teacher had yet to arrive. Eren gives a sigh and prepares to face Mikasa, but his elbow accidentally hits his pencil case, causing it to fall from his table.

He grimaces slightly when he hears the faint sound of his pencil case hitting the floor, but gives a relieved breath when he looks down and sees that it was closed beforehand. "Damn, lemme pick this up..."

The boy forcefully grasps around his desk's leg with his right hand to serve as support and prevent him from coming face-first against the hard surface beneath his feet. Eren could finally feel his fingers touch the fabric of his pencil case... until he saw another hand closing in. Baffled by the sight of the pale palm nearing his case, Eren abruptly rose his head from his lowered state. Only to groan in pain when the top of his skull came into a harsh collision with something hard.

"Ow, shit!" He silently cursed under his breath and brought his right hand to his head, rubbing the hit spot vigorously. He placed his left hand on the ground and pulled himself up from his bent position.

Upon ignoring his throbbing cranium for a second, Eren felt his eyes grow as wide as dinner plates. The green eyed teen wasn't able to remove his eyes from the big, blonde boy sitting right by his left side. His eyes were half-lidded in mild pain, a hand rubbing his chin in slow motions. The attire he was wearing was a simple dark blue jacket together with the baggiest pants Eren had ever seen in his life. It, however, did not stop Eren from seeing how bulky he was. "Oh, damn... I'm sorry!"

The big youngster made Eren raise an eyebrow with the lighthearted chuckle he gave. He leaned down and grabbed the pencil case, carefully setting it on Eren's desk without much effort. "Relax, dude. It was just an accident."

Eren breathed inwardly in pure relief. His hide would stay attached to his body a few more days. Thankfully. He glanced to his side again to see the blonde sticking an open palm towards his direction. "C'mon, I ain't mad with ya. I'm Reiner Braun. You?"

"Eren Jaeger." Eren replied quickly and fist-bumped the bulky man in a gesture of friendship. Right after that, he retracted his arm and rubbed the same spot on top of his head.

"Heh, that was one hell of a headbutt, friend." Reiner commented, rubbing a finger on his chin. He smirked brightly before adding, "Nice to meet ya, Eren!"

"Same, man!" Eren's eyes sparkled with joy when he looked at Reiner one last time: _He _should his roommate. A cool guy, not the walking ice cube that he got. Damn, the expression on his face was friendlier than any other face he had seen in his whole life.

"So, who have you got as your roommate? Just curious, you know."

"Ummm... a girl named Annie Leonhardt." He answered, looking around the class to try and find the aforementioned girl.

"Daaaamn... What a stroke of bad luck, man." Reiner said in a quite worried tone, looking at the lightly tanned boy sitting behind him.

"Why do you say that?" Eren asked, as if trying to look oblivious to Annie's rocky attitude.

"Me and Bertholdt," Reiner turned his upper body to the tanned boy behind him, who gave a quick wave and passed a hand on his black hair for a second before staring at Eren with a friendly gaze, "Studied with Annie since the start of Middle School, ya know. She hasn't been the most talkative, nor she has been the life of the party on most moments."

"She is also scary with her strength, even if she's short." Bertholdt spoke up, nervously smirking at Eren. "She managed to put Reiner down by flipping him over her shoulder."

Reiner's face flushed slightly at the mention of such event, but he kept his composure. "All in all, that girl's danger. Not trouble, but danger. I really hope you don't try to commit suicide to excessive boredom. Just remember to not piss her off, okay? For your own sake."

Eren swallowed the lump that has formed in his throat as he looked at the two tall boys before him. Mikasa only watched the situation with her typical stoic expression, not showing interest in them at all. "I-I'll try... I guess?"

"Oh!" Bertholdt suddenly snapped. "Where are my manners. I'm Bertholdt Fubar, but you can call me Bert. It's a great pleasure to meet you, Eren Jaeger!"

**...**

The loud sound of chatter was enough to stop Eren from diving in his thoughts during recess. Students left and entered the large cafeteria, all of them talking between themselves or just wandering around in their own. He never saw so many people concentrated in one place, and he was finding the whole situation in its own a bit... suffocating. Much to his luck, he arrived early enough to avoid the titanic line and get an empty table to share with Mikasa and Armin.

"So, what did you guys think about the first half of classes?" Armin spoke up, then occupying himself with drinking the juice from his cup.

"It was very... nice, I guess?" Eren quickly replied, grabbing his fork and his knife to start eating his lunch. "I liked Ms. Hanji's class, but Levi's was boring. He sounds like an ass, really."

"Mr. Erwin's class was the one which passed more quickly." Mikasa added her own opinion, already taking her fork to her mouth. Her face contorted slightly when she realized that her food was way too hot for her liking.

The trio all looked up when two tall figures neared their table. They stopped on the edge of the table, revealing themselves to be no one other than Reiner and Bertholdt, the boys Eren and his childhood friends befriended during the times when the whole class talked at the same time. Eren got to like them both rapidly, even with Bert's shyer nature.

"Hey!" Reiner greeted, not removing his hands from the tray. "Can we sit with you guys? This place is filled to the brim with people."

"But of course, Reiner!" Armin accepted their presence before Eren could even say anything.

The two teens grinned at the three and set their trays on the surface of the table, sitting next to each other and opposite to their new friends. "Wow, this place used to be emptier, you know."

"What do you mean?" Eren asked.

"You see, me and Bert studied here since Elementary School. We practically know every single corner of this school. It's our first time in this part of it, though, but the school in its own was waaaaay calmer last year." Reiner explained, taking a bite off from his lunch.

"Mikasa and Armin, who are your roommates?" Bertholdt threw a calm look at the two, wishing that his question didn't annoy them.

"Me and Armin are in the same room." Mikasa simply answered, taking a sip from her juice.

"Well, I'm in the same room as Bert too. I guess it's easier to live with a friend, but nothing beats making new friends." Reiner added in, briefly before he started to feast on his lunch with satisfaction stamped on his face.

"I find strange the fact that this school allows girls to be in the same room as boys, you know..." Eren commented, his voice carrying a hint of suspicion.

"Ah, don't worry, Eren. When you get to know the true colors of the staff, you'll won't be so surprised." Bert explained.

The taller boy's explanation made Eren raise an eyebrow in confusion, throwing a questioning look at both Reiner and Bert. He silently chewed on his food, noticing that Mikasa and Armin were expecting a clearer answer too.

"Heh, you know, the guy who takes care of this matter is called Dot Pixis." Reiner began speaking after a lighthearted chuckle. "He's one hell of a drunkard. What means that he works while swaying from side to side, if you get what I'm saying. His decisions are quite precise, though. He likes to look at new student's past profile reports, so he might have seen something in your old stuff that got his attention."

Eren gulped down the remaining orange juice in his plastic cup and looked around. It didn't take much time until he spotted the short figure of Annie sitting in a table not far from his. Her expression was the same she wore earlier this day. Uninterested, bored, _lifeless_. A black-haired girl sat by her side, face marked with excitement and cheerfulness. From what Eren was observing, Annie seemed to be deeply bored by whatever the girl was excitedly talking about.

He stopped staring the moment he heard heavy footsteps closing in towards their table. Nearly every one sitting turned their heads to face the source of such noise: A stout boy, sporting a buzz-cut, also carrying a tray. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt colored with a bright shade of green. From what they noticed, he just got his lunch a few moments ago, telling by the dancing trail of light fume raising upwards. He scoured his eyes through the students at the table, and apparently got a tad intimidated upon noticing Reiner.

"Umm... can I sit with you guys? All the other tables are full." He said, shivering on the slightest as he diverted his sight from Reiner.

"Of course, dude!" The invitation came from no one other than the teen who intimidated him: Reiner. The blonde patted the space by his side, signaling for him to sit down.

And so did the 'newcomer'. He dropped his tray carefully and sheepishly sat down on the available space, seemingly shrinking next to Reiner's big frame. If one looked closely, they could see small droplets of sweat running down his shaved scalp.

"I saw you during class, man." Reiner broke the silence by turning his body to the teen sitting by his side. "You're..."

"C-Connie Springer!" He blurted out, glancing at Reiner.

"Oh, yeah. You're Connie. Nice to meet ya, dude." Reiner stuck out his hand in a friendly manner.

Eren simply watched the scene before his eyes, giving Connie a large smile and an across-table fist bump when he asked for his name. So far, High School was turning out to be incredibly great. Having his old childhood friend and his sister together in the same class, not excluding the super-friendly pair of walking skyscrapers that go by the name of Reiner and Bertholdt, was simply, plainly great. He, however, noticed that Reiner's conversation with Connie was still going up, and that everyone in the table was paying attention.

"...So, Connie, who's your roommate?"

"A girl called Sasha." Connie said while throwing a sideways glance towards the nearby table. More specifically, his glance was directed to a brown-haired girl who was viciously assaulting her lunch.

"Oh." Was Reiner's only reply.

"The weirdest part of it is that she brought a big-ass box inside our room before class. When she left for the bathroom, I took a peek inside and..."

"And?" Eren intervened, waiting for the completion anxiously.

"There were tons and tons of food!" Connie stroke a dramatic pose while holding both arms up. "Meat, fruit, potato chips, everything you can ever imagine!"

"Well..." Armin spoke up as he rubbed his chin in thought. "I think you won't have a problem with cooking, I guess?"

"Yeah! You should see that as a headstart, Connie!" Eren supported his friend's statement with joy, causing Reiner and Bertholdt to chuckle about the story in its own.

Before Connie could even spill out his rebuttal, the ear-shattering ringing of the bell interrupted him abruptly. Everyone stood up and grabbed their trays, placing them at the counters next to the cantina. Eren hadn't emptied his whole plate, but he assumed to himself that he had eaten the necessary to help him keep up for the next periods. He joined Armin and Mikasa in the exit of the mess hall, and then moved to their classroom without many words being said. He never liked school, to be honest, but today... today was proving to be different.

He headed over back to the classroom smiling widely. But of course, he was being guided by the two 'veterans'.

**...**

Eren tiredly stumbled across the hallway, his eyes half-lidded with pure exhaustion. He was accompanied in such a battered state by no one but his blonde friend, Armin. They both suffered in PE class, and the guilty could be thrown upon a not so friendly teacher called Keith Shadis. It seemed more like a military training drill rather than a Physical Education class, really. Eren lost count of how many laps he ran around the gym long ago, and now, in the state that he was, he could care less.

"You both look horrible." Mikasa's words stroke through their tired trains of thought and was enough to make them look at her. Mikasa herself wasn't as tired as her friend and brother were, but her labored breathing showed enough that she didn't escape from the fatigue.

"I... know..." Eren replied curtly, sucking in a deep breath. He felt a sparkle of hope light up in him upon seeing the dormitory hallway right before his eyes. The pain in his shins and the sole of his feet decreased a tiny bit. He switched his material to his left arm and kept his slow march to his room.

It was for a flinch, but the trio managed to find the way back to the dormitories after their last class with the help of Reiner. If it wasn't for him, they would be probably wandering through the school's Elementary section right now.

The hallway was oddly empty, but that was because of Shadis' PE class. Nearly every single freshmen had tucked themselves into their rooms and fallen asleep, while the ones who managed to stay in their feet, such as Reiner and Bertholdt, gave a trip to the nearby convenience store to buy their dinner.

_Wait... dinner._

Eren's eyes widened like saucers the moment this thought passed through his head. He didn't recall ever carrying any kind of food together with him when he arrived in the morning. Wait, he did. But they were just a for-two sized bag of chips. The freshmen looked quite worried now.

Upon arriving at the step of Armin's and Mikasa's room, Eren was told to wait. And so he did. He just wished he wouldn't be much of a bother if he called them during the following night to get to their room and eat there.

Wait. He did have a roommate. Eren still had to get used to the fact that he wasn't home now, obviously. It's a new world that he'll have to grow accustomed to with time. All while sharing space with no one other than Annie Leonhardt. _I don't think I need to worry about Annie. Like, I think she's just being shy and all, she'll come out of her shell in no time! I just need to try and talk with her._

This made Eren grin dumbly to no one but himself. His smile faded when he saw Mikasa and Armin coming at the door, while his sister carried something in her arms. Oh, his salvation: A pack of instant noodles.

"Here." She tossed it right into Eren's arms. The pack landed almost perfectly together with his stacked notebooks. "So that you don't die of starvation."

"Thanks... Mikasa!" Eren smiled brightly at her, noticing that Armin had something to say as well.

"Oh, Eren. Just letting you know... if you want to come here any time, just call our phones!" He took in a deep breath before stretching his sore limbs. "Bert told me that curfew starts at 8 PM, so we don't exactly have to worry."

"I... I'll talk to you guys later. See ya!" He waved off to them, starting to slowly move towards his door in a zombie-like pace. He did saw Mikasa giving him quite the concerned look before closing her door shut.

Eren placed a hand on the pocket of his hoodie and pulled off the key he had received from Annie. He stared deeply at the doorknob, body tilting slightly with tiredness. He was halfway to try and unlock the door, but then he thought about Annie already being inside. Well, the girl simply disappeared after class, so she should be doing something. At least he liked to believe so.

With a shy swing of the cold doorknob, the door opened slowly. Eren raised his eyebrows in surprise as he walked inside, feeling a weak yet comfortable warmth rushing through his battered body. He could very well dart to his room and dive for his bed, but he yet had to know about Annie's whereabouts, and of course check the box under his bed that the blonde had told him.

After closing the door, Eren narrowed his eyes went he heard a faint yet constant noise coming from deeper within his room. The boy finally stood at the living room, noticing that Annie's material was laying on top of the desk. He dropped his next to hers, and proceed to his bedroom. That is, not before setting his instant noodles on top of their 'kitchen's' counter.

When he set foot inside his bedroom, Eren finally recognized the sound: It was the sound of water dropping, coming directly from the bathroom door. He shrugged at the thought and fought against his desire to hug his pillow and sleep for the rest of the day. Or should he say night? A glance to the window, which was curiously without the curtains blocking the view of the outside made him realize that the daylight was already dying, but since the skies were completely overcast, the only hint of nightfall was the ever-darkening atmosphere growing in the city.

"Well... time to check what my dad left for me..." He said before bending down to his knees and tilting his head enough to allow him to see what was under the bed.

It was a simple cardboard box. The sides were a bit stuffed from the content it was holding, but Eren didn't bother himself to notice and pulled it next to him. When it came to light, Eren saw a small sticky note attached to the top. He tore it off the box and read.

_Eren,_

_How did you forget about your wallet? You thought you would live with your roommate by leaning on him for food? You shouldn't have left in such a hurry, son. Well, that doesn't matter right now. We managed to put everything that you forgot back home in this box, along with your old things and your phone's charger. And some clothes too. We are hoping that you're enjoying your new life at the dormitories well._

_Please, don't forget about calling us every week or so, too._

_Your parents, Grisha and Carla._

He groaned lowly at the letter and placed his palm squarely on his forehead. Eren then grabbed the sides of the box and opened it in one swift motion. His jaw dropped at what he saw before his eyes:

"My video-game and my old TV?!" He exclaimed out loud, using the sound coming from the bathroom to partially muffle his words. His hands threw aside some of the extra clothes that came together with his beloved possessions. What made his heart beat even faster was the sight of multiple bright green cover boxes buried in the mess of objects and clothes. Digging in the box only led him to find another of his electronics, his laptop. "Oh my God, this is fucking awesome!"

Eren crazily hugged his Xbox, TV, and as well his laptop in one impressive yet loving embrace. His eyes gleamed with happiness, and he let out little noises that could be mistaken by a child's squeaks.

During his happiness outburst, Eren failed to notice that the sound of water coming from the bathroom ceased out of nothing. He continued to hug his favorite objects with all of his strength, despite being physically exhausted. So much that he failed yet again, but now, he failed to hear the bathroom door opening.

"Jaeger... what are you doing?" Annie's left eye twitched for a split second when she emerged from the bathroom, a small cloud of steam following her.

Eren immediately froze from the mention of his last name. The world around him finally snapped when he recognized the tone of voice coming from behind him. He carefully dropped his things and craned his neck towards his roommate. Her emotionless expression was still stamped on her pale face, much to his surprise. Her eyes traveled down to the scattered electronics on the floor, and her face sparkles with acknowledgement.

"H-Hey, Annie..." Eren said, his cheeks stained with a light shade of pink.

"Jaeger." She replied, placing one of her short, damp locks behind her ear.

"Uhhh..." Eren struggled to find the right words to explain his situation.

"You don't need to explain anything." She said while she moved to their living room before eyeing him over her shoulder. "Just take a shower, please."

The boy breathed in relief. Maybe that was a pro of having such a stoic roommate. He grabbed his things and placed the electronics on top of his bed, looking back at his bag and the box. Well, he could unpack later. He needed a shower, like, right now. To relax.

**...**

It didn't take long till Eren emerged from the bathroom, dressed in his favorite olive green pajamas. The first feeling he had when stepping out of the hot room was renewal. He wasn't the one to take long baths, and nor was he the one to care about how childish or laughable his pajama looked. In conjunct with the pair of black socks he put in, the teen sported a goofy smile as he left the bathroom. He seemed to forget about the fact that there was another human being in the dorm. Eren then checks both his bag and the box he received for any clothes, and delivered those to the cabinet he had seen earlier.

He then remembers about what Armin had told him. Eren grabbed his phone and checked the messages, seeing one from his blonde friend saying that he and Mikasa were going to stay in for the night due to Keith's rigorous class. The boy smiled at the message before sending a simple reply, obviously repeating what his friends had said.

Grabbing the desired objects, Eren carelessly dragged himself to the living room. He looked to his left side first, thankful to see that his instant noodles were still there, on top of their simple counter. Glancing to his right side now, Eren's mouth fell slightly agape as he saw no one other than Annie sitting on the couch, eyes busy with a thick book placed next to her face.

She was also dressed in her pajamas, much to his surprise. But her short stature, including her golden strands made her look like a fragile person. The pajama she was wearing was colored in a light pink, adorned with multiple pink dots. She didn't even look like the blunt and gelid girl he met earlier today.

For some reason, Eren grinned dumbly at the thought of Annie standing in the same attire, but with a sleepy face and carrying a fluffy teddy bear on her left arm. You know, giving those adorable long yawns as she rubbed her eye with her free hand.

Wait.

Why was he even picturing this in his mind in first place?

Shaking his head for a moment, Eren quickly set the 'equipment' on top of the small coffee table that he had seen earlier. His act managed to get Annie's attention, who watched the boy before her icy eyes dart from place to place while holding a line cord in a tireless search for an outlet. When he finally found one on the wall behind the couch, he came back to grab another line cord and connect it to the second outlet, powering up both his console and his TV. The sound emitted from the pitch-black device made Annie jump curtly on her seat.

Eren smiled enormously again and raced for his room to grab his controller. A quick glance to the clock, and he saw it: 7:31 PM. His eyebrow raised slightly at the time, but he got what he needed anyways. Upon crossing the doorway leading to the silent living room, his stomach grumbled in need for food. _Time to eat some noodles._

After a few minutes wasted in failed attempts to turn on the microwave and finding a fork, one that could have been Annie's (Which she could have cared less. They were roommates, so they were bound to borrow things from each other. Of course that clothes were out of this) when he opened a shelf at random in the kitchen's counter, Eren sat comfortably at the couch. Annie barely flinched when his rear's landing was quite heavy, and only eyed him from time to time as he devoured his fresh noodles.

"So." Eren began, chewing on his food before swallowing it and looking at her in hopes to form some kind of bond. "What did you think of today?"

"Pretty interesting." Annie responded, not taking her eyes out of the book before her.

"Have you studied here before?" Eren tried to rescue the conversation.

"Why do you ask?"

"Some guys called Reiner and Bertholdt told me so." He answered, now halfway in his dinner.

"Well, yes. I've been studying here since Middle School." She managed to keep Reiner and Bertholdt out of her answer somehow.

Eren nodded in acknowledgement and started turning on his Xbox, what seemed to make Annie divert her gaze from the book again. He eventually finished his noodles and began playing a game at random.

Annie herself put her book aside and quietly watched the gameplay, slightly impressed at how he could not take his gaze off of the screen for a single second. She crossed her legs, staring at her pink shin-length socks without much interest. Little did she know that Eren was aware of her watching, and he smiled to himself with pride.

...

Incredibly, hours pass like minutes as the duo shared nothing but a suffocating silence between each other. Eren struggled to find something good to ask her rather than his usual "The weather today was nice" which didn't got an agreeing response. He looked at the clock from across the room and hoped that it is late enough for him to head to bed.

"Huh. Let's head to bed and sleep for now. Tomorrow's going to be more tiresome than today, Jaeger." Annie stood up and headed off to their bedroom, leaving a mildly baffled Eren looking at her as she walked off.

_Goddamn, her shell is hella hard to break._ Eren thought to himself as he started to scratch his back. _I just hope that I manage to make Annie friendlier towards me. Can't say I'll last long enough with her._

Eren didn't waste much time into turning off the videogame, only staying additional seconds in the living room to place his laptop on top of the desk in case they needed to use it. He stood up, left his controller on the coffee table and turned off the lights, allowing the whole living room to envelop itself in pitch-black darkness.

He dragged his body to their bedroom and saw Annie leaving the bathroom, probably after brushing her teeth. Eren then proceeds to do the same thing she did, brushing his teeth quickly before returning. He still found strange to see that time passed so quickly before his eyes. Maybe he has spent a lot of time without playing games, and this is an after-effect.

As Eren headed to his designated bed, he thought about the awkwardness of this night. He never even imagined about someone this... rocky. This cold. Not that he would hate her from now on, since the fact of having an enemy inside your dormitory wouldn't be the best idea ever. Eren trusted himself that he would break her ice. He knew that he was going to do that. How? He doesn't know now. But he will.

"Before we go to sleep, Annie, who will wake us up?" Eren questioned, looking at the girl already wrapped under her blankets.

"There's nothing to worry about, Jaeger. Class only starts at 8:10, and I wake up early." Annie appeared out of her coverings for a moment. Eren simply gave a nod before heading to the light switch.

He turned off the light, shrouding this environment too in total darkness. He makes a quick dive for his bed, enveloping himself around the blanket and taking some time to find the pillow. Eren finally stopped shuffling about in his bed, and, turning to the left side and pulling his blanket high enough to partially cover his face, he called out:

"Goodnight, Annie."

Annie, on the opposite side of the bedroom, shot her eyes open at the mention of her name. Her gaze is fixated into the ceiling, but the absence of light made her feel like staring into pure nothingness. She gave a quiet yawn before coming up with a reply as well.

"See you next morning... Eren."


	2. Angels, Horsefaces and Cooking

_**Hello! For the second chapter, I'll be showing some of the side-shipping pairs that I have planned for this story. Sorry for the massive wait and leaving some of you begging for more. I had a pretty good week and I usually write better during weekends.**_

_**Well, hope you enjoy this!**_

_**...**_

Annie slowly opened her eyes to see a blurry image of the wall before her. She yawned quietly, lifting a hand to her face and rubbing her eye sleepily before taking both arms out of her blanket and stretching them in the air. The blonde immediately dug them under the sheets due to how cold the room was in the morning, shivering slightly and burying her body even more into the comfortable, alluring warmth of the bed.

She turned her body to the opposite side and was greeted with the sight of faint daylight penetrating through the curtains. Looking up and taking out some of the golden strands out of her eyesight, Annie stared directly at the clock resting on top of the bedside cabinet: 7:41 AM. She gave a low groan and sat up in the bed, trying her best to shrug off the sleep, and of course the idea of just laying down again and sleeping until she had to head off to class.

But of course that Annie Leonhardt _wouldn't_ do that.

Being a morning person was something rare among teenagers, but Annie was quite proud to be one. Having someone as strict (Yet loving) as her father, the girl grew accustomed to waking up early even during weekends and her vacations. She simply couldn't throw away a good morning.

Annie took in a sharp breath and pulled her warm sheets away from her body. She stood up, stretched her body yet again and little did bother to fix her messy hair as she looked outside at the window after pulling the curtains away. The glass was exceptionally wet, signaling that it had either rained or drizzled when they were asleep. The streets of the city were mostly empty, even though it was a Tuesday, with the occasional pedestrian slowly walking covered up in a mass of clothing.

She finally moved herself out of the window and looked down at her roommate, Eren Jaeger. And no, he _wasn't_ a sleeping angel. His mouth was hanging open, a line of drool coming down his cheeks and staining his pillow in one large dark circle. His arms were intertwined with the blanket, as if he didn't wish it to ever leave him. He wasn't quiet, too. Her ears could very well hear the snoring escaping from his throat.

Goddamn, he surely wasn't a sleeping angel.

Instead of just waking him up, Annie simply sighed and directed her body towards the bathroom in a straightened up position. Upon entering, she stared at herself in the mirror, quickly tying her currently loose hair to the back of her head as she always did. Annie then lowered her face next to the sink and turned the faucet. She took in a deep breath before cupping her hands and bringing them to her face, shivering slightly at how freezing the water was. But it would wake her up, nevertheless.

After a single minute, Annie emerged from the bathroom with a better look on her features. She still had to wake up Eren somehow, and considering the boy's sleeping position, it would prove to be one hell of a hard task. But firstly, she had to change her clothes; Opening the cabinet, Annie went directly to her half of the shelves, pulling one open and taking out a white hoodie. She didn't waste any time in randomly grabbing one of her jeans and carrying them to her bed, where she started to take out her pajamas and dress up in her everyday clothing.

She didn't care if Eren was looking or not, because the sounds of snoring were loud enough to tell her that the emerald-eyed boy was still in the sweet world of slumber. Annie finally slipped on a white, almost iconic hoodie and glanced at the clock: 7:48. Damn, she better wake up Eren before they both arrive late in class. She just had to find a way of waking him up. And of course, she would attempt the easiest, most obvious way.

"Eren." She spoke out loud, moving herself next to Eren's bed. "Wake up."

"But... mom... I don't want to go to school..." He unconsciously replied, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth when he finished his sentence.

"Jaeger!" She called even louder now, enough to gain a sleepy gasp from the boy. "I'm not your mother."

"Wait... whaaaaa?" Eren asked, eyes groggily opening to meet Annie's cold gaze set on him. "Oh... Annie..."

"Get up already, Eren." Annie ordered, almost sternly. "Or we'll be late for school."

"Aw... but it is still early..." Eren whined, causing Annie to roll her eyes in pure annoyance.

"Eren, it's already 7:50." She replied matter-of-factly, crossing her arms.

Eren's eyes shot open and he sat up on his bed in the blink of an eye. This made Annie spin on her heels and head to the living room, sighing and looking for her material. She just needed to wait until that idiot got himself prepared for the day ahead of them.

In the bedroom, Eren madly threw his pajamas away from his body and switched to a set of random clothes, which turned out to be a long-sleeved shirt colored in crimson red and a set of dark jeans that he casually wore. His sneakers were the same ones he always wore, since the boy little did care about the subject concerned the quantity of footwear he owned. He darted to the bathroom, nearly stumbling on his way, but was quick to wash away the sleep and the drool stains on the corners of his mouth. Squeezing toothpaste over his toothbrush, Eren furiously brushed his teeth while fighting against sleep and avoiding getting paste foam on his clothes. Even in his rush, he couldn't help but think how sore he was from yesterday's PE class.

When he was done with his mad brushing, Eren flew out of the doorway and grabbed his materials like if it was the last thing he would ever do in his whole life. He placed his notebooks under his arm along with his pencil case and looked around in the living room in search of his roommate. And there she was, leaning against the kitchen's counter while hugging her material.

"Let's go, you know how early Erwin arrives at the classroom." Annie said, now walking towards the door and opening it with her key.

Eren took in a deep breath and rubbed the sleep off of his eyes. _C'mon, Eren. It's the second day, you need to be up for it. I survived my first night with Annie, after all._

**...**

Upon arriving at the classroom, Eren and his childhood friends noticed that Annie's words were true. Erwin was already sitting at the teacher's desk, eyes set on a pile of papers that he held up to assist in reading. His body was bathed in the dead, faint daylight coming from the window. The class was nearly full, and it seemed that the teacher was waiting for this exact moment to start his class. Eren, Mikasa and Armin took their seats in the same desks they had stayed on the other day and waited for the beginning of class.

Erwin stood up from his seat when the last student entered the room and sat down. The tall man carried a piece of chalk in his right hand and he cleared his throat before speaking.

"Firstly, good morning to all of you." Erwin smiled slightly at the sudden choir of "good morning" that came together with his phrase. "Well, today, we are going to start looking at the subject of elimination..."

He turned to the board and started writing down the date, probably to avoid later being asked 'what day is today?' which would surely slow down his class. His writing was an alert for every single student in the classroom to open their notebooks almost immediately and start putting their hands to work.

As the class went on, Armin couldn't help himself but to smile at how Eren was concentrated at the subject being explained by Erwin, let alone the fact that the teen was actually _copying _what was on the board. Something that he considered rare for his friend to do. His green eyes shifted from the teacher to the board constantly, and he wrote down every single word that Mr. Smith put down at the board. The blonde wondered to himself what made Eren change so much in his attitude towards his studies, but he didn't have enough time to let his mind wander and lose the useful explanations.

A few minutes of explaining passed, and Erwin was visibly pleased to notice that every single student was quiet. He started writing down a problem at the board, leaving a large space beneath it. Some students lowered their heads to hide themselves from the teacher, thinking that he would call someone at random to try and resolve that problem. Eren and Armin, however, kept their heads up and just waited for the outcome.

"Okay, everyone. Would anybody be a volunteer and solve this equation?" Erwin said in his usual direct tone, eyes scanning the room full of young boys and girls.

His expression lightened up when he saw a tiny hand being raised at the leftmost side of the class. He leaned his body in the direction of the raised hand and said, "Please, Ms...?"

"Christa Lenz, Mr. Smith." A feminine, nearly heavenly voice spoke up, enough to have all eyes set on her as she stood up from her chair.

Reiner, who was sitting on the same spot he sat on his first day, felt his mouth fall agape and his eyes widen upon setting eyes on Christa: Her perfect blue eyes, her shiny blonde strands, her petite stature, the way she walked to the board and the brightness in her smile. Everything about her was perfect to Reiner, who failed to care about the small line of drool coming down his chin. He felt his limbs go limp, his chest skip a beat and his stomach getting flooded with butterflies. _A-A goddess?_

"Heh, it seems that someone just saw Jesus." A mocking voice came from his left side, making Reiner turn his body to whoever said it.

The person turned out to be a tanned and freckled girl, who wore an expression of complete mockery on her uptight features. She expertly spun her pencil between her fingers and she looked at Reiner with a calm gleam in her narrowed eyes. It was like she was examining him. Studying him. The girl shook her head and chuckled quietly to herself.

As if destiny wanted to tease him further, Christa was already returning to her seat, face etched in with one of the most angelic smiles Braun had ever seen in his whole life. He felt his face heat up with embarrassment when he found himself unable to take his eyes off her, even when she sat down on her chair. Well, the chair right in front of the tanned girl who had mocked him seconds ago.

"Oi, Mr. Bulky." The tanned girl started, eyes sparkling with amusement. "Better take some notes, ya know."

"Ymir!" The shorter girl intervened, placing both arms on her friend's shoulders. "Don't be so mean to him!"

Reiner was completely impressed by her kindness. He slowly turned his head away from the duo and tried his best to focus his mind on the problems waiting to be copied. Well, it proved to be one of the hardest things he ever tried doing. Much to his surprise, the blonde girl gave him a simple smile, and, for some unknown reason, the sun emerged from the cloudy sky and cast its rays right where Christa was sitting. Now, Reiner was deeply involved in wondering if this Christa was some kind of goddess.

Suddenly, a finger tapped against his arm, snapping him out of his deep train of thought. Reiner turned his body to find Eren, Armin and even Bertholdt staring at him in utter confusion.

"Hey, Reiner," Eren started, taking a sideways glance at Erwin to see if he'd noticed their whispering. "You're red. Are you okay?"

"O-Of course I am!" Reiner stuttered, but had to lower his voice to a whisper. "Now just turn around and copy what's on the board!"

The trio shared blank looks, before chuckling between themselves as the situation finally processed itself completely in their heads. Reiner, on the other hand, rested his hands on his cheeks in order to try and hide his flushed face from the world. He really hoped it would help him out of the possible teasing he would receive from his friends when recess came.

But he'll be damned, Christa Lenz's a goddess amongst mortals.

**...**

Recess came faster than Eren could have ever believed. In one minute, the boy darted out of the classroom while being followed by Armin and Mikasa. He grabbed his lunch, but found himself stranded in the cafeteria, eyes desperately searching for a free table. The flux of students was way larger than yesterday's, and the trio kept trying to find a table where they could set their lunches and eat comfortably.

In a matter of seconds, Reiner and Bertholdt appeared out of the massive line of people coming in the cafeteria. They approached the trio and started gazing at the same direction Eren was looking at.

"Goddamnit. Seems that today's not our lucky day." Reiner said in defeat, even tiptoeing to get a better overview of the mess hall.

"Hey, Bert!" Connie called to the taller boy, who had to lean his head down in order to face the bald teen. "Can you see any free tables from up there in the clouds?"

Connie's comment made everyone in the group, including Mikasa, laugh lightheartedly. Bert smiled in acknowledgement for his colossal height, and decided to use it for the well-being of his new friends. Sadly, nothing was achieved with his surveying activity. He looked down at their band of students and gave a sad sigh.

"Ugh, this sucks major balls." Eren commented, grunting during his pause. "What now?"

"Well..." Reiner began, eyes looking up in thought. "Maybe we could head to the cour-"

"Hello~!" A sweet voice rang in their ears, prompting everyone in their group to face a certain blonde who stared at them with a bright smile spread on her innocent features. "Are you guys in need of a table?"

Christa tilted her head slightly and closed her eyes, throwing yet another smile at the group, but this one was way larger and brighter. Every single boy had their eyes glued at her, mouths agape, hearts thumping madly in their chest. Save for Eren, who eyed all of his friends with a blank and questioning look, as if not understanding their trance-like state. Time seemed to slow down for them, and yet again, the sunlight appeared out of the overcast skies and oddly cast its rays on top of Christa again. Mikasa, being the only one who wasn't exactly caring about how angelical the girl looked, rolled her eyes and spoke up:

"Yes, we are."

"Oh, I can help you! Please, just follow me!" Christa replied and turned around, slowly walking in the opposite direction.

No words were needed. The boys worked their legs immediately to follow Christa suit, all while Mikasa huffed in pure annoyance behind the warm surface of her scarf. As they bee-lined through the mass of students, Mikasa could very well hear comments saying, "Was that God?", "Is she some kind of goddess?" Much to her surprise, one special gruff voice replied to them all, "Yes, guys. She _is _a goddess."

It didn't take much time and the band of freshmen arrived at where Christa led them, and to everyone's bafflement, she ended up leading them to a _completely empty table._ Well, not so empty, after all. Sitting at it where no one other than Ymir, Annie, and two other girls whose names were still unknown to the boys and Mikasa. Eren felt his eyebrows shot up upon noticing Annie's presence, who sipped on her cup while she probably listened to the words of whatever the light-haired girl eating by her side was saying. He felt the girl's eyes stare at him for a moment, and she leant into Annie's ear to whisper.

"Wow... I... thank you, Christa!" Reiner exclaimed, cheeks stained with a light hue of pink.

"Don't worry, Mr. Braun!" She replied almost instantly, throwing a large smile at the tall man.

Reiner couldn't help but dream about how lovely that girl was. She didn't even call him by his name, considering that she could have only memorized his last name for some reason. Yet, he didn't even care. He just wished he could marry her. Like, right now.

They all finally sat down, setting their trays on the rather cold surface of the table and finally being able to enjoy their lunch. Eren ended up crammed between Annie and Armin, since the table soon became over-populated when they all took their seats. He looked over to his roommate, who seemed to have her gaze fixated at something far away from where they were. He sucked in a deep breath after noticing that Mikasa was staring at him from the corner of his eye, and turned to Annie.

"Hey, Annie. Good to see you again!" He started in a friendly tone, smiling at his roommate.

"Eren." She replied without much interest, giving him a sideways glance in acknowledgement.

"Ooooh, so he's your roommate, Ann!" A high-pitched voice came from his right side, and soon he saw that same girl who whispered in Annie's ear earlier tilting her head behind the table to examine him. Eren felt like if her eyes were trying to dig holes into his skull, or something on that level.

"Yes, Hitch. Now get back to your food, or it'll get cold." Annie bluntly responded, placing one rebellious strand behind her ear.

"Hmmmm... you sure are luc-"

"Shut up, Hitch." Annie scolded, a scowl forming on her face. She even moved her right hand over Hitch's mouth to muffle her words and prevent herself from doing anything worse.

Hitch simply giggled teasingly, leaving a huffing Annie and a slightly embarrassed Eren looking away from the duo. He noticed that Mikasa was clearly glaring at Hitch and Annie, who merely took such detail into account, and instead turned to talk with that dark-haired girl that Eren had seen yesterday talking with his roommate.

Eren simply ignored Annie for the time being. It was mainly because his mind was primarily tormenting him with a million thoughts and ideas of what to say to the her, but they came without any avail. Defeated, the green-eyed boy rested his hands on his face and shifted his attention to whatever his friends where talking about. From what he was slowly understanding, Connie was frowning deeply at Bertholdt, as if blaming him for not noticing the table. Reiner, on the other hand, had a giant smirk spread across his face as he slid slightly down on his seat.

"You two, quit arguing." Reiner intervened, nudging Bert to get his attention. "Let's just talk about something not related to tables, for God's sake."

Connie shrugged off the response and kept eating his lunch, seemingly uninterested as his eyes traveled around the mess hall. He seemed to be deep in thought, similar to how Eren looked when trying to find a good line to pick up a conversation with Annie. Suddenly, his eyes gleamed with curiosity and he assumed a more upright pose on his seat.

"Hey, do you guys got any video games?" He asked, full of excitement.

"I do!" Eren finally spoke, finding something worth to talk about.

"What console do you guys have?" Reiner added shortly afterwards, his expression brightening upon the mention of a subject that he particularly loved. "I've got a Xbox."

"Me too!" Eren quickly replied, his emeralds sparkling.

"Count me in, dudes!" Connie came in.

"I got a Xbox, too." Armin added a tad shyly, but received enormous grins from his new friends nonetheless.

"Gamertags?" Reiner requested, pulling out a piece of paper out of his jacket. The boys raised their eyebrows in surprise as they saw the blonde pull out a pencil, too.

"Wait, what about Bert?" Eren pointed towards the taller teen, who gave a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Relax, Eren. I also play on Reiner's account. But, you know, I'm more of a PC real time strategy player."

Eren raised an eyebrow at his gaming preference, but immediately responded to Reiner's second attempt at requesting their Xbox Live Gamertags. He smiled to himself as he wrote down his nickname, knowing that great times awaited him after class. _Great_ times.

**...**

Later that day, all of the students of room 104 were reunited at the gym, and everyone was dressed in their Physical Education uniforms. They were all warming up by stretching their arms and legs, surrounding a gruff, intimidating bald man towering over at nearly every single teenager present there. His watchful eyes made sure that they were correctly doing what he asked them to. Lifting the whistle, that hung around his neck, to his mouth, the one named Keith Shadis blew hard on the small object, earning gasps of surprise in response.

"Listen up, class!" He began, voice reverberating through the freezing gym. "Today, we're gonna start with a simple exercise: 15 laps around the whole gym!"

The whole group erupted in gasps and nearly everyone stared at Keith as if he had grown a second head. His expression didn't change on the slightest, making all of them walk towards the nearest corner of the gym. The majority of the freshmen shivered due to the bitter cold, and the PE uniform wasn't exactly warm. As Eren moved together with the group, he, followed by Mikasa and Armin, asked Reiner:

"Why are we running around a basketball court, Reiner?" He then brought his hands up to his face, breathing on them to keep them from freezing.

"Haha, be happy that we're inside a closed court. If we had to run in the _actual_ race track, you would probably fall dead to the cold." Reiner laughed shortly before looking down at the trio. "C'mon, this court isn't _that_ big, and you'll get pretty warm after six laps or so."

Eren contorted his face when a breeze, frigid and apparently coming from the pure nowhere blew his hair back wildly. He and his childhood friends stopped on their tracks when they arrived to the agglomeration of students standing stiffly in the corner of the gym. Connie was there, with his roommate Sasha Braus next to him as well. Their ongoing chat seemed to be pretty interesting, considering how neither of them trembled in cold. Eren opened his mouth to speak, but was abruptly interrupted by Shadis' sudden whistle ringing in their ears.

"C'mon, you little imps! Run!" Keith shouted, clapping his hands together to get their attention.

So, without further ado, the mass of teens started moving, some running as fast as lightning, while others jogged at a moderate pace, aiming to collect energy for the long run they would need to complete. Sadly, Eren wasn't among those. He kept running at a quite fast pace, enough to warm up his body, but also enough to make his legs nearly give out at the end of the second lap. He drastically reduced his speed upon completing the second lap, being even overtaken by Armin himself.

"C'mon... Eren... slow down!" Reiner suddenly popped up by his side, slowing his pace as well to match Eren's sluggish one. "Take deep breaths, jog calmly... You're not in a race!"

"I... know!" Eren replied, causing Reiner to speed up and continue his run. The teen sucked in a lungful of oxygen, trying his best to maintain his speed constant and moderate.

Using his advice, Eren managed to stay on track for all of the 15 laps, but that didn't keep him from literally falling flat on his back upon completion. The rest of the class was gasping for air and Eren heard tired comments coming from every direction. Mikasa and Armin sat down next to him, both breathing deep and exhaustedly. Wiping out the bead of cold sweat from his forehead, Eren raised himself from his position and placed a hand on his chest tiredly.

"Fucking hell... Shadis is trying to kill us..." Eren muttered to himself, feeling like if his ribcage was trying to crush his lungs.

His eyes opened a bit more when he noticed a boy moving next to them. Said person smiled brightly and largely at no one other than Armin, who replied to his gesture. The brunette noticed that the boy was barely sweating at all, and that was thanks to the bottle of water that he was carrying in his hands. Eren took a good look to his face, and was quick to see how freckled his cheeks were. The expression he wore on his face was calm and friendly. For some reason, Eren couldn't help but smile weakly as the boy bent down to Armin's level and gave him the bottle.

Oh, now he remembered, that this was the same guy who frequently talked with Armin about some math-related things in between classes.

"Hey there, Eren!" He greeted, snapping the green-eyed teen out of his daydream. "Want some water?"

Eren blinked blankly at the bottle hanging next to his face, but took it nevertheless. He raised it, tilted the tip down at his mouth, and squeezed the sides to make a small spurt of water come out. Swallowing the liquid down his dry throat, Eren looked back up at the freckled boy with gratitude stamped on his eyes.

"Thanks, man..." He examined him a tad closer now, as if inquiring to know who he was. "You're..."

"I'm Marco! I've seen you during class." Marco said, answering his question and sticking out a hand in Eren's direction. "It's a great pleasure to get to talk to you, Eren."

"Same here, Marco." Eren gave a lighthearted chuckle and took Marco's hand, shaking it for a brief moment.

Silence reigned around them the moment Marco took his bottle back. That is, until a rather tall figure approached Marco from behind. Eren's eyes went wide the moment he examined the figure when they placed themselves at the freckled boy's side, face sporting a large, toothy grin that appeared to be mocking anything it was directed at.

Then realization struck him like lightning on a tree.

That long face.

That ash-brown hair.

Those narrow hazel eyes.

_No way. No fucking way._

Eren hopelessly wished that the sight right before him wasn't actually real. However, it was futile.

Yes, that was really Jean Kirstein, as a freshman in Sina High School.

Both boys never had a bright past during their time at Trost Elementary. While their relationship based itself on a simple 'friends-yet-rivals' level, Eren wouldn't even think of ever seeing Jean in his whole life again. Since the boy's departure to a school located in the Stohess neighborhood, nothing was heard again of him and Marco. Eren didn't actually like to admit it, but he did miss the usual arguments he had in the morning with Jean. And so did he miss their bets to do extremely stupid things, too.

Almost unconsciously, Eren stood up. His eyes were glued on Jean. They didn't carry any expression, if one looked very closely. His irises were blank, lifeless. If there was something that really showed how baffled Eren was, then they surely were his eyeballs. His stare managed to burn into Jean's skull, since the other boy shifted his gaze towards the probable source of the rather uncomfortable sensation. When their eyes met, anybody that was peeking at the scene could actually notice fire burning in their eyes.

"Jaeger boy..." Jean started, eyebrows furrowing at the shorter boy. "We meet again."

"Your horseface remains the same, Jean." Eren challenged, lips curling in a mocking smirk. Marco visibly shivered at the words.

"Still up with this fucking nickname, Jaeger?" Jean retorted, scowling deeply. His stare moved towards Mikasa, who watched the whole argument with an expressionless face, obviously uninterested. Jean's scowl suddenly disappeared, giving space to a light shade of pink spreading on his cheeks.

"Don't you look at my sister like that, you fucking dipshit!" Eren angrily intervened, shooting himself in front of Jean to block his sight.

"Hey! Don't you squish yourself against me, your little-"

"C'mon, you worthless shrimps!" An authoritarian voice rang in their ears, followed by a ear-shattering whistle echoing through the gym. "I want everyone doing 10 laps while running backwards, or you all are going to do 200 push-ups!"

Eren and Jean shared a few annoyed groans with one another before one last mutual glare, and set off running reversely. It proved to be a difficult task at first, but when they achieved stability in their steps, the two teens shared defiant glances. Eren shook his head and started picking a faster pace, hoping to overtake his horse-faced opponent.

It was hard to admit, but his High School days just got better now.

**...**

A buzzing noise caused Eren to grab his phone, which was idly sitting on the armrest of the couch.

_'Eren'_

Sitting on the couch of his room, hours after his meeting with Jean, Eren grunted lowly while staring with pure focus at his phone's screen. The text coming from Mikasa was pretty confusing, but Eren kept himself from asking when he noticed that his foster sister was typing another message.

_'I hope you are alright'_

His face contorted in bafflement, making his fingers work their way through the digital keyboard so quickly that his fingers were nothing but beige blurs to the naked eye.

_'What do you mean, Mikasa?'_

_'Reiner and Bertholdt told me about how dangerous Annie is. I hope you're safe.'_

_'...Seriously, Mikasa? She is just quiet, c'mon'_

_'Um. Just letting you know that if Annie even tries to lay a finger on you, she's spending a month in the hospital'_

_'Jeez, Mika. Relax!'_

_'Whatever, Eren. Just remember to have dinner with what you bought earlier today. For your own sake.'_

Oh, dinner. That was what Eren was forgetting tonight. He looked to his right side, seeing Annie uninterestedly flipping a page of her book, and then to the left, capturing the multiple plastic bags filled with random products that they had bought only 1 hour ago.

It cost him one of his precious 100 dollar bills that Eren stored in his wallet, but it would at least keep the duo alive for a month or so. The memories of his trip to the nearby supermarket with Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, Armin and Mikasa were still fresh in his brain, not to mention the mildly laughable image of Annie standing next to Reiner and Bert. The boy chuckled quietly to himself, hoping to muffle the sound by bringing a hand to his mouth.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated on top of his lap, making Eren grab the device and look at the screen. _A call from Reiner?!_ Eren recalled giving Reiner his number so that he could make a "What's App" group for them to chat and share homework information, but he never expected that he would call him so early. Swiping his finger across the screen, Eren brought up his phone to his ear and spoke.

"Hello?"

_"Oh, hey man." _ A gruff voice replied on the other end.

"Reiner, good to hear you again. Why are you calling me?" Eren's question came off a tad bluntly, but it seemed like Reiner simply shrugged it off.

_"Well, I've been thinking. We managed to make a great group of friends since day one, right? So, I've got the idea of making a "first week complete" party if you get what I'm saying."_

"First... week... complete party?" Eren raised an eyebrow.

_"Yeah, invite all of our friends over to my room to have some pizza, chat and just goof off with my videogame."_

"Oh!" Eren nearly yelled, gaining a light glare from Annie. He chuckled sheepishly and continued speaking, now in a lower volume. "Count me in!"

_"Glad that you actually accepted it. Count Annie in, too. She needs to see some colors in her life!"_

"Of course, Reiner, I'll tell her." Eren then looked up when a thought passed through his head. "Wait, pizza? How the hell are you and Bert bringing freaking pizza boxes into the school without much trouble?"

_"Haha, relax, Eren. We can get inside the school with food from the outside. That's why you passed so easily through the gate with that fuckton of plastic bags from the supermarket."_

"Oh... right. So, it's set then?"

_"Yeah, kind of. I still need to call Connie. See you next morning!"_

"Later, dude." Eren hung the call and set his phone aside. He then turned to his side to tell Annie about his conversation with Reiner, but he was met with a knowing, cold gaze digging its way into his soul. "Umm... Reiner-"

"I know what he wants. Pizza and first week party, isn't it?" Annie threw the question back at him, placing one of her strands behind her ear like would usually do.

"How do you know that? Have you got telepathic powers or somethin'?" Eren asked, surprised.

Annie rolled her eyes at the boy's attempt to make her pull of a smile, but replied nonetheless. "I know Reiner and Bertholdt since Middle School. Whenever a new year rolls out, Reiner just had this obsession of making parties involving pizza."

"Oh, so, you going?"

The blonde's reply was a simple nod. Even if Eren didn't like it, as usual silence came crashing down in the room like a meteorite. He wanted to try and have a good conversation with the girl sitting next to him, but this came with no success. It was only his second day, and he was already feeling bored out of his mind. For a second, the freshman considered leaning in to turn on his Xbox and game for a few hours, but his stomach was faster to grumble and ask for food.

Eren sat back on the couch and looked at the clock hanging at the wall, which read 7:24 PM. A great time to have dinner. He couldn't help himself but feel relieved by the fact that the dorm now had a proper stock of food and drinks. Pressing a hand against the couch to help himself in standing up, Eren tried to think of something to make tonight.

He silently moved from his spot on the living room and towards the tiny kitchen. His mind was flooding with multiple suggestions of what he could prepare for a tasty and satisfactory dinner. _Instant noodles? Nah, I ate that yesterday. Soup? No, thanks. I'll leave that as a last resort. Maybe..._

"Jaeger." Annie's firm voice sliced through his train of thought. "If you're going to make dinner, then you better choose what we're going to eat already." She stood up to set her book aside, and started walking next to Eren. The idea was difficult to believe, but it seemed like Annie was actually trying to help him in some way.

"Ummm..." He wondered, shuffling inside the plastic bags with his hand. "We could get something simple. What do you think?"

Annie shrugged. "We got beef. Nothing too fancy, if that's what you're looking for."

"Oh! Great idea." Eren smirked to himself as he finally took out a small pack containing a pretty small quantity of raw beef. "It mustn't be the hardest thing to cook, if you ask me. Just place it on a frying pan, turn on the oven and boom, good beef."

Annie's eyes widened for a split second and she received a grim reminder attached to Eren's words: she didn't know how to cook. Since she was a child, the blonde never ever took interest in cooking, despite her father's numerous efforts in trying to teach her. Memories of her failed attempts at frying eggs raced in her mind, making the girl visibly paler than ever. Thankfully, Eren appeared to be way too busy with his efforts to attempt opening the pack of beef. Finally, he bit down on the plastic, ripping a large hole in the plastic.

What Annie didn't know was that Eren was feeling equally insecure about this situation. The boy had little to no experience with cooking during his childhood, possibly due to the day when he tried to make a bowl of rice and ended up turning it into a bowl of charred rice. So, Eren was ready to lean on Annie for help. From what he had seen recently, she showed herself as a capable person who can handle herself in almost any situation. Hell, she even had stored a freaking frying pan in one of the vacant cabinets at the kitchen. Unless that frying pan was of someone else's possession. Well, Eren couldn't care less.

"Well, I guess we have to light up the oven..." Eren said, feeling nervous as he moved next to the mentioned appliance, fingers tinkering with the multiple buttons.

After a good minute of guessing, Eren finally decided to press a button at random. His head shot up almost instantly when he heard a peculiar sound coming from the surface of the stove: One of the burner heads was already encircled in light blue flames. His eyebrows raised and a victorious smile spread across his features.

"Okay, now let's grab that frying pan that I saw earlier." He said to himself, hands traveling to a nearby cabinet. He pulled the handle to reveal a single frying pan resting inside one of the drawers.

Annie watched the scene from behind Eren, internally hoping that her roommate had some past experience with cooking and that he could keep her away from even touching any of those kitchen tools. She really hoped.

Eren proceeded to place the frying pan over the burner head, and then followed to pull out a fresh slab of beef from the packaging. The raw piece of flesh was dangerously slippery, and it easily slipped out from Eren's loose grip easily. He let out a worried shriek and dove for the meat, managing to get his hands on it before it could come into contact with the floor. Annie watched his desperate attempt with a straight face, however she could not deny the growing urge to crack a giggle at his goofiness.

Now wide-eyed but with the raw beef in his hands, Eren sucked in a sharp breath and recomposed himself. He quickly stood up and dropped the food on the frying pan, looking down at it in relief. His happiness didn't last long, though, since his brain started storming him with the idea of adding something more to the meat. _Salt? Well... maybe olive oil. Yeah, that might do it. I've seen mom do it multiple times._

"Hey, Annie." Eren began, looking at the blonde. "What about adding some oil to it?"

"Your choice." She said, indifferently. Annie then tucked her hand inside one of the plastic bags, taking out a small bottle of oil before handing it to him. "Here."

"Thanks!" Eren gave her a large smirk in reply.

The teen then placed both hands around the bottle's lid, turning his palms in the same direction in one effortful move. He groaned loudly when he realized that the lid didn't move a single inch, not to mention the burning sensation brewing on his palms. _Oh, fucking great! This is one of those impossible to open lids that have been closed shut with goddamned super glue!_

Annie watched with an annoyed expression as Eren tried to unsuccessfully open the bottle with what seemed to be all of his strength. Her patience grew thin with every failed opening, a scowl forming on her face. Upon observing the 6th try, Annie grunted under her breath and decided to take these matters into her own hands.

"Give me that, Jaeger." She said, voice filled with impatience.

She abruptly snatched the bottle from his hand and shook her head for a moment, sending him a glare. The girl then placed her fingers around the lid and circled them around it with all of her strength. It took a bit of struggle, but Annie managed to make it open, finally.

Unfortunately, Annie used way too much force in order to open the lid. So much that she didn't realize that the lid _loosened._

Without any words being said, Annie shoved Eren not-so-gently aside and took his position in front of the stove. She looked at the beef, which had a small trail of fume raising from the side facing down, while the other remained raw. She simply grabbed the fork laying next to the sink and turned the beef on its raw side, as if her insecurities of cooking were all but gone. Giving the now cooked side of the beef turned up, Annie poured down the oil by tilting the bottle almost completely. Her mind was too annoyed to even notice how much she angled the bottle with her hand.

What happened next wasn't the most beautiful thing.

The moment the bottle was completely tilted, the already loosened lid came off from the pressure imposed by all of the liquid stored inside. It poured down nearly all of the bottle in one go, flooding the frying pan to the brim with cooking oil. When the accumulated oil started to drip down from the sides of the pan, it came into contact with the weak fire emanated by the burner head, instantly igniting into flames. Her blue irises shrunk to tiny dots as a large orange flame rose up from where the oil was poured and high enough to reach the ceiling. Annie felt her heart skip a beat, visibly surprised as she immediately backed away several steps before bumping squarely on Eren.

"Holy fucking shiit!" Eren yelled, eyes fixated on the fire that was slowly spreading through the stove's surface, following the oil close. "Do something to pull it o-out!"

"Wait, you idiot!" She screamed back, eyes crazily searching for anything that could put the fire out.

Annie glanced to her side, seeing an idle cup sitting next to the sink and the fridge. Not hesitating, Annie threw the glass next to the faucet and filled it in an instant with fresh water. Only to throw it on the ever-growing fire, somehow succeeding in putting out a great part of their disaster. But, the fire quickly regained its lost territory within a matter of seconds.

Eren felt his heart thumping in his chest like if it would explode at any moment. Out of instinct, he opened a drawer frantically and searched, finding a bowl that could be used for popcorn afternoons. He removed the object from its resting place and shoved it next to the sink, turning on the water to fill it to the brim. Once it was full, Eren lifted the heavy bowl with a groan and threw all of its content on the dancing flames.

His eyes filled with hope when a loud ***hiss* **came from the stove and filled the room with a cloud of scorching steam. The duo stared at the burn marks spread all around the walls and even the ceiling, leaving erratic black spots in the once creamy beige wall. Their gaze then shifted till it was set on the frying pan. It was still standing, while the same could not be said about the beef. The piece of meat was charred to the point where it was just ash. Eren and Annie both contorted their noses at the horrible smell of burnt meat that reached their nostrils as the steam traveled its way to the window.

The brunette looked over to the blonde, eyes meeting in a stare that could speak for a million words on whatever action they should take onwards. They remained dead silent, since no conversation was needed when they mentally agreed on what they should do next.

_Instant noodles._

**...**

_**Here it is! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. And I'm terribly sorry for making you people wait so damn long for it.**_


	3. The Party

_**Hello! Welcome to the third chapter of this written thing. It might not have many Eren X Annie moments, but I hope it doesn't bother you people.**_

_**Sorry for the wait, you all. My life took some pretty crazy paths recently, what made me lose some ideas for quite a long time. I'm sorry again.**_

_**Warning: This hasn't been revised by my proofreader. I decided to post this non-revised version just because I didn't want to leave you all waiting forever for the next chapter. So, if it is too shitty, do warn me. I'll make my best to polish the whole thing.**_

_**...**_

Eren rested his elbows against the table's surface, fingers rubbing his tired his eyes in a useless attempt to regain some energy. He sunk down in his seat to the point he found a bit of comfortableness in the chair. A yawn escaped his lips, followed by a rather groggy groan as he started fidgeting with the pencil laying next to a blank sheet of paper.

The boy really wanted to pay attention to Ms. Nanaba's class. Like, for real. Unfortunately, Arts wasn't exactly his favorite subject. Especially when today their teacher decided to lecture in excruciating detail the life of many famous artists around the world. The whole class was dead silent, what only contributed even more to his sleepiness. The faint sunlight creeping inside the room through the windows wasn't bright enough, leaving the room with an odd and eerie atmosphere in there.

Or just the type of atmosphere that can make everyone sleepy in less than 5 minutes.

"Eren." Someone whisper-shouted to him. "Eren, are you awake?"

Eren yawned and rested an elbow against the table, placing his chin on the surface of his palm. He opened his eyes to the point they were half-lidded, and replied, "What is it, Reiner?"

"It's not Reiner, Eren." The voice stated. "I'm Armin!"

The brunette let out a loud but highly confused "Uhh?!" before lifting his head out of his hand and looking to his left side, where Reiner was staring blankly at Ms. Nanaba. Eren shook his head and instead faced his right side, seeing Armin giving him a concerned look.

"Hey, Armin..." Eren said, eyes closing again.

"Did you go to bed late again, Eren?" He heard Mikasa ask sternly, her eyes locking with her foster brother's.

"I'm not sleepy, Mikasa... I'm just... resting my eyes for a bit..."

He heard Mikasa huff audibly. But to be honest, Eren didn't care. Much to his desperation, Nanaba was still going on with her speech, walking from side to side next to the large blackboard behind her. The Arts classroom was surely different from the other rooms in the school.

It consisted of three large, rectangular tables taking up almost all space inside, surrounded by chairs on all sides so that it could house even more students inside without much problems. Those who ended up sitting with their backs turned back to the teacher and the board simply had to position their chairs in a different position. On the left wall of the room, a long cabinet, filled with a thousand works of art done by students of other grades were on display, disputing room with numerous supplies such as piles of paper, and other materials crucial for Arts projects.

Eren made his last attempt to stay up, rubbing his eyes for a longer moment. He blinked several times, shook his head, and focused on Nanaba, who was at mere meters from him. Unfortunately, his vision began to blur again, eyelids pledging to be closed. The boy let out a quiet frustrated grunt. He couldn't exactly take a nap, not with Christa sitting across from him. She wasn't the best person to cover you while sleeping, due to her tiny frame.

The green-eyed teen decided to lay an outstretched arm on the table, lowering his head on it. He kept his face facing forward, to avoid getting the teacher's attention, but instead, he allowed his gaze to wander through the students sitting at the table. Eren visibly glared upon noticing that Connie, sitting right between Mikasa and Sasha, was sleeping soundly, drool coming out of his opened mouth. Connie had the luck to have Bertholdt in front of him, and in conjunction with his small height and Bert's way too tall figure, the bald could now take his nap without any worries.

As the lecture went on, Eren totally lost count of how many times he fell asleep and woke up seconds later by his own self telling that someone was watching him. Every time he came back to the world of the wake, Eren rubbed his eyes, yawned, sunk down in his seat and prepared to sleep again.

What a marvelous way to start a Friday morning.

Eren couldn't even believe that the week passed so quickly before his eyes. To be honest with himself, the boy still thought that yesterday was still his remarkable Monday. Or his great, great Tuesday night. Both Eren and Annie tried, and succeeded in hiding the truth about how they nearly burnt down their kitchen, and possibly their whole dorm. The two teens were happy with that. The only memory they had of their disaster were the numerous burn marks on the walls, and the charred underside of their frying pan.

Thinking that today was already Friday reminded Eren of a simple fact.

Reiner's pizza party was today.

After that thought passed through his mind, the boy ended up smirking to himself. He was happy to finally be able to eat something different rather than instant noodles (What he and Annie survived from as the week went on), and of course, get to enjoy a night with his new buddies.

Finally, an ear-shattering bell rang around in the school, signaling the end of the class. Nearly every student present gave a deep breath of relief, sounding as if they were one. Ms. Nanaba simply halted her lecture and dismissed the teens, who darted out of the room in the blink of an eye.

Outside the classroom, the group of friends moved together on their way back to the other classroom surrounded by an eerie silence. Everyone, except for Armin and Marco, walked down the hallway with hunched backs and constant yawning, eyes focused on their own feet uninterestedly. Connie, even after taking a considerably long nap, remained with a sleepy air surrounding him, basically leaning on Sasha for support as they made their way through the eerily empty halls. Suddenly, Connie removed his head from Sasha's shoulder and stumbled over to Reiner, leaning on the taller boy's arm to keep himself on his feet.

"You're getting lots of pizza, right?" He questioned, taking a moment to yawn deeply.

"Yeah. Why do you ask?" Reiner asked, adding some more strength to his arm in order to prevent the bald boy from falling flat on his face.

"A certain girl called Sasha Braus is coming, too..." Connie simply jabbed a thumb to somewhere behind him, causing everyone in their group to turn their faces to their backs. Everyone's eyebrows shot up when they saw Sasha leaning down next to Christa. The petite blonde had just taken out a small pack of Halls drops when the food-lover happened to glance over at her. Now, Christa stared a tad frightened at the drooling girl in front of her, but she ended giving a drop to Sasha to avoid any further problems.

Reiner and Bertholdt stared at each other after watching the small scene that played out before their eyes. Reiner looked pretty troubled, while the expression marked on Bert's features was a blank one. Their stare presumably made the two childhood friends come to a conclusion, considering that they nodded to each other after a brief amount of time.

They would surely need more pizza for tonight.

**...**

Eren and Annie left their dorm, the door slamming brutally against the doorframe. Annie gave a deep glare at the brunette, enough to make him give an apologetic smile and stick a hand in his pockets. He took out the room's keys, locked the door and turned to the blonde, giving her a questioning look.

"Should we go?" He asked, pulling down the sleeves of his grey hoodie to cover his arms. The hallway was eerily cold during this Friday night.

"We better hurry up, Jaeger." She replied bluntly, rolling her eyes at his question. "After all... you did tell me that Braus had already arrived."

"Heh. I see someone's not up to lose the opportunity to eat pizza." Eren chuckled, giving Annie a large, toothy grin.

Annie didn't respond. She sighed and looked away, finding herself unable to maintain eye contact with Eren specially when he pulled out that childish smile of his, and when he threw off such pathetic attempts at making her laugh or even crack a tiny smile. She liked to believe that his smirk neared the borders of being obnoxious. And Annie was quite comfortable with that facade.

When the green-eyed boy was done with fidgeting with his phone for a few seconds, the duo finally put themselves to walk. From what Annie noticed, Eren's sense of fashion was a tad... bad. He had put on a simple, open black jacket that covered a long-sleeved grey shirt. He was also wearing some casual dark blue jeans, in addition to his usual sneakers. And apparently, Eren looked quite comfortable in his simplistic way of dressing.

Annie wasn't someone to care about style, honestly. She put on her favorite (And almost iconic) white hoodie together with a light-toned jeans. Her hair was a bit damp from the recent bath she had taken while still reading herself for the party, not to mention that it now lightly smelt like vanilla. Whenever the wind blew against her head, she could feel said scent filling her nostrils...

Followed by Eren's deodorant.

The blonde girl didn't know why, but Eren literally _bathed _himself in deodorant before they left their room. Every time he lifted his arms up, or just had a light breeze blown towards his body, the smell just spread in the air. While it was quite a good odor, Annie was starting to get a little lightheaded by how strong it was.

She was so deeply concentrated at trying to find a way to ignore Eren's deodorant that she didn't even notice said boy raising his knuckles to knock on a door. The small metallic plate stuck on it read '94'. Mikasa's and Armin's room. Eren only wanted to come along to Reiner's party with his friends, and that was everything.

When Eren's knuckles were about to knock on the door, it opened abruptly, revealing Mikasa's stoic face. Her eyebrows rose when she noticed Eren and Annie, but then lowered when she exited the dorm and joined the duo silently. She saw her brother giving her a large smile, and could very well notice his eyes examining her.

"Hey, Mikasa!" He greeted, loud as he commonly is. His eyes scanned her, noticing that she had opted for a grey jacket, which was open and revealed a beige shirt underneath. She also wore black pants in conjunction with grey sneakers. "I see that you took out the best of your clothes!"

"Hello, Eren." She replied, looking at his attire and then glancing at her own. Her eyes then traveled to the short girl standing next to her foster brother. "Annie."

"Mikasa." Annie responded just as coldly, her blue gelid orbs meeting with Mikasa's dark, steel-like irises in a stare that could kill.

Eren audibly gulped when he sensed the two girl's stares colliding with one another. His stomach froze with fear when he noticed the glint of anger deep within his sister's eyes, despite her stoic expression on the outside. Mikasa looked like if she was ready to pounce on Annie and beat the living soul out of the petite girl. Annie, on the other side, remained with an unchanged expression, her gaze uninterested and gelid.

The boy desperately glanced around, trying to find a possible way out before the teens before him just got on each other's necks. He was quick to notice Armin's absence, and of course, he was willing to use it in order to prevent the situation from going awry.

"M-Mikasa!" He spoke, causing both girls to look at him. "Where's Armin?"

Mikasa stared at the door for a second. "He's still inside. Getting ready, I think."

"Getting ready?" Eren asked, sounding suspicious. He gave a quick sigh of relief, knowing that he had put the situation between Annie and Mikasa down, but his mind was now focused at the new problems in his hands. "It can't be. Armin never takes so much damn time to get ready!"

"It is. Knock on the door." Mikasa said, in a rather concerned tone.

Eren walked up to the door and did as he was asked. No response came. He knocked again, again, silence. Annie sighed under her breath at the situation, searching around for something where she could check what time it was.

The green-eyed boy decided to take a step further. "Armin!" He almost yelled. "What are you doing holed up in there?!"

"I-I'm getting ready, Eren!" Armin shouted back, clearly stuttering.

"Getting ready?! You can't be taking longer than Mikasa to get dressed, dude!" Eren retorted, banging the door once to get his friend's attention.

Eren's fist was on its way to hit the door again, but Mikasa quickly intervened by grabbing his forearm. The boy glanced at her direction, only to receive a calm stare that spoke more than words. His eyes eased when he remembered about Armin's nervousness before they went to parties. Unless they were family parties, of course, but the blond teen was always tense whenever it came to such subject. Eren sighed and turned to the door again, knowing what to say.

"Armin, man! You can come out! It's not like we're going to a party with drunken people and crazy girls like the last one!" Eren felt ashamed to mention such event aloud, but it was pretty necessary.

One solid second after Eren spilled out their not-so-pleasant experience, the door swung open. Armin emerged from inside the room, trembling from tension and with nervousness splayed all over his youthful features. The shorter boy was wearing a simple light green jacket, similar to Mikasa's, but his was closed. He was wearing black pants, which looked quite baggy if one were to pay too much attention.

"Yo, Armin!" Eren suddenly changed his expression, throwing his best friend a large smirk and raising his hand for a fist bump, which Armin sheepishly knocked his knuckles with Eren's. "You don't need to be so nervous, dude. After all, everyone who's going are our friends from our class."

"I... guess so, Eren." He replied, fidgeting with his hands briefly. He noticed that Annie was in their group too, and waved sheepishly at the girl. "Oh, hello Annie."

"Armin." She solely responded to his greeting, nodding once in acknowledgement.

Now that they were together, the group of four teenagers made their way through the empty hallway on their way to Reiner's room. The number was '68', so it would take a few seconds of walking to get there. Few seconds that consisted of a suffocating silence hanging between Annie and Mikasa, only broken by the little squeaks that Armin let out every time Eren put an arm around his neck and ruffled his blond hair, muttering words around the lines of 'They're our friends' and 'You're not going to see anyone vomiting their bowels out of the window'. If his words gave Armin some confidence, the emerald-eyed brunette simply didn't know.

Eren finally let go of Armin's neck and halted his movements before Reiner's door. He took out a small piece of paper from his jean's pockets, checked if he was at the right room, and knocked. A muffled "Comin'!" was heard before the door opened in one swift motion. No one other than Reiner appeared inside with Bertholdt's head just behind the blond's broad shoulders, both sporting welcoming smiles as Reiner put his hands on his waist. Bert remained behind his best friend, waiting for the guests to enter.

"Guys! I'm glad that you finally arrived." Reiner held the door open and stepped aside, allowing the recently-arrived guests to enter his dorm. As they passed, Reiner and Bert fist-bumped both Armin and Eren (Eren's taking a few more seconds due to their unique 'bro fist-bump' that they invented only yesterday), and the hosts gave a simple 'hello' to Mikasa and waited just as Annie walked in.

The taller blond closed the door behind his old friend and craned his neck down to face her, followed by Bert's more accentuated lean of his neck. Annie simply gazed up quietly, shooting him her usual gelid stare.

"Annie. Good to see you!" Reiner pulled her into a warm, friendly hug, messing playfully with her hair. Bertholdt too came to the hug, embracing the short girl a tad more shyly than Reiner.

"Reiner, Bert." She said, voice lightly muffled by the blue sweatshirt Reiner was wearing. She responded to his hug by attempting to connect her arms around him, but his torso proved to be way larger in comparison her relatively tiny arms. They soon broke the embrace and Annie made her way to the living room, following the trio of friends.

The room itself was a carbon copy of all the other rooms: A rather big living room, a small kitchen, a doorway leading to the bedroom. The only thing that made it different from Eren's was the walls' colors, which were orange rather than beige. Just as they stepped inside, they could feel the smell of seemingly freshly made pizza filling their nostrils.

At the living room, more specifically sitting down at the couch, were Connie, Jean, Sasha and Marco. Both Connie and Jean had controllers on their hands, viciously mashing the buttons and clearly exchanging taunts at one another. Sasha devoured a slice of pizza while holding it with a hand, rotting for Connie with a full mouth. Marco smiled good-naturedly at his friends' little gaming competition, quietly taking regular sips from his can of soda. Bert then returned to the scene, sitting down on an armchair and sinking in the seat, watching the gaming battle that Jean and Connie were involved into.

Curiously, Reiner and Bertholdt happened to have another couch, smaller than the one opposite to the TV, right under the window. It was completely empty, waiting for someone to rest their bums on it. All in all, the room was really fitted to receive a small party.

The four 'newcomers' moved their way around the television and made themselves comfortable at the empty couch, exchanging verbal greetings with the other present guests (Mostly because neither Jean or Connie wouldn't risk giving anyone a fist-bump/handshake and lose the upper hand in their little Call of Duty 1v1 match) and then soon finding themselves attracted to the ongoing match, except for Annie and Mikasa, who looked like they could care less about such competition.

"Who's the one on the top of the screen?" Eren asked, noticing way too quickly that they were dueling in split-screen.

"It's me, Jaeger boy!" Jean replied with a cocky smirk.

"...Horseface, you're horrible at COD." Eren chuckled, earning an irritated groan from his rival, and a mocking laugh from both Connie and Sasha.

"I'm the one who's winning! Are you too blind to look at the boar- Fuck you, Connie!" He snapped, watching as his character was gunned down to death in the killcam.

"Hah! Here's where the ass-kicking begins!" The bald boy crowed in anticipation, lifting his controller up.

"I'll win this, baldie... oh, I will..." Jean said between gritted teeth, leaning towards the screen in a defiant pose.

As their little 1v1 match went on, Reiner just remained planted behind the kitchen's counter, partially hidden by a pile of pizza boxes. He was particularly focused on placing various cheese-flavored slices on empty plates, smiling to himself as he did so. After he finally filled the plates, he started placing them all over his arms due to the lack of a waiter's tray, though it was done pretty professionally.

"Agh, you fucking dickwad!" Connie suddenly yelled, obviously frustrated with the outcome of his battle with Jean as he watched for the second time the death of his in-game character. "You and your goddamned jump-shooting!"

Jean gave the best shit-eating grin he could ever pull off and leaned against the couch, hands resting on the back of his head. He was about to taunt Connie with a random, almost senseless line related to how bad he played, but his eyes instead captured a very concentrated Reiner balancing multiple plates with his arms and hands as he made his way around the television. Reiner then proceeded to deliver the plates to Annie, Armin, Mikasa, Eren, and so on. Jean and Connie didn't care about the bulky young man in front of the TV, since their little match had just ended.

When Reiner was done giving the plates of pizza to his friends, he stiffened his back, towering over the teens with a large smirk on his face and placing his hands on his waist, striking a peculiar pose.

"Muzzarella!" He announced, pretty obviously since everyone already knew the flavor from the appearance. Unfortunately, his attempt at imitating an Italian pizzaiolo was spoiled by his gruff voice, causing him to sigh afterwards. "I'll grab you guys some drinks in a second."

"Heh, flawless performance, Reiner. You're now eligible to work as a waiter." Connie said in a mocking tone, somehow making Sasha choke on her pizza and burst out laughing after receiving a few quick taps on the back by the same bald boy who made her laugh.

Reiner simply shook his head and chuckled at Connie's statement, going back behind the kitchen's counter and squatting down out of his friend's sight for some reason. This made an awkward silence reign around their band of freshmen as they ate their pizzas before someone butted in with a suggestion for their gaming moment:

"Hey... whose turn is it to play?" It was Eren, loud and sounding challenging as always. Somehow, the brunette was already finishing his pizza slice. Armin grimaced lightly when he noticed where this could end at.

"It's... nobody's. Connie just lost so, we would move to the next player on the line." Jean replied, knowing well what the brunette was trying to do. He took a relatively large bit off of his slice before setting the plate on Marco's lap. "It can be you, Jaeger. Just you and me, in a COD 1v1... whatcha think?"

Eren's reply came when the boy launched himself off of his seat, looking down at Jean with challenging eyes. Jean caught sight of his opponent, throwing yet another shit-eating grin at him. Connie noticed that Eren intended to seat right next to Jean for the match, so he moved to sit on the floor after leaving the controller on the couch's now empty spot, leaning his back against the couch right under Sasha. The brunette sat down on the space Connie just gave him, grabbed the controller after making himself comfortable next to his soon-to-be opponent.

Well, on the other side, Marco and Bertholdt, who were right by each other's side (Only separated by the fact that Bert was sitting on the armchair), knew that things were about to go down just as Jean pressed the 'A' button. Bert's forehead already had a few droplets of sweat as he watched the screen with fearful eyes, knowing way too well that their match wouldn't sparkle only some verbal fight. And Reiner wouldn't be very happy to see two teens trying to beat the hell out of themselves in a fistfight.

Marco was trying to devise a plan, anxiously rubbing his chin as he watched Eren customizing his equipment for the match. The brunette was pretty selective at which weapons and grenades he was going to use, what bought Jean's best friend some time. He continued to furiously rub his chin, but it soon stopped when an idea just sparkled inside his mind. Bert noticed his friend's expression lightening up, leaning forward to get a better view of the freshmen still eating their pizzas.

"Hey guys, I have a suggestion!" Marco said out loud, grinning a tad uncharacteristically at everyone, more particularly Jean and Eren. "What about we play some Zombie Survival? We can do turns so that everyone can play!"

Eren and Jean exchanged a confused look between themselves, then shooting said gaze at Marco. The boy who just suggested the game mode to a relatively safer one (Which couldn't exactly lead to an angered brawl between Jean and Eren) had received some 'backup' from Bert, who smiled largely in attempts to help convince the duo of rivals despite the sweat glistening on his forehead.

As if on cue to help them, Reiner suddenly raised from behind the counter, throwing glances at the teens sitting on the couches before passing a hand through his hair and slipping something into his pocket with the other hand. "Well... sounds like a perfect idea! Zombie Survival is the shit in COD Black Ops, and I've got all the DLCs!" He beamed, smiling as well.

The green-eyed boy stared at his horsefaced rival for a second, then having their gazes turned to the rest of the group to see if any of them had... objections. Connie shrugged carelessly, Sasha was too busy chomping on her second slice, Armin smiled at Eren in approval , Annie and Mikasa, well, they were not the ones to rely on for a decision regarding video-games. Their decision was already made.

"Okay, we'll play some Zombies." Jean announced, using the buttons to leave the splitscreen lobby. "But, we're not going to play splitscreen! It's just sucky, ya know." He pulled out a cocky smirk before raising his arm abruptly. "I'm going first!"

"Second!" Before Eren could even voice his attempt at grabbing the second place on their line, Sasha interrupted him nonchalantly, surprising most of the teens around her. The brunette gritted his teeth and raised his hand up as fast as he could.

"Third!"

"Gah! Fourth!" Connie replied, silently cursing his slow-processing brain for not getting him the third place in their imaginary line.

"Fifth." Marco butted in, even if his tone of voice didn't show much competitiveness.

"I guess I can take the sixth place." Reiner called out, raising from his 'hiding spot' for a second.

"I haven't got a problem with getting the last position, anyways." Bertholdt shrugged with a smile, obviously not caring about being the last one.

Jean passed his eyes over to the other couch, where Mikasa and Armin were quietly chatting and Annie stared at the relatively calm situation that Eren and his eternal opponent could have ruined. He lifted his controller to call their attention. "Any of you want to play as well."

Annie's reply came with a dismissive wave of her hand, while Mikasa and Armin politely declined afterwards. Eren and Jean shared looks again before the latter started to set up their game, deciding that they would play on Nacht Der Untoten to make the whole thing more challenging. As the two boys in hold of the controllers began to discuss if they should pick another map rather than the one suggested, Bertholdt silently stood up and made his way towards the counter.

The giant had to simply lean forward a bit to catch Reiner crouching down behind the counter with his phone in his hands, fingers rapidly typing a message to someone he couldn't exactly tell who it was. Bertholdt frowned lightly, and cleared his throat, "Reiner? What are you doing?"

Reiner lets out an almost inaudible gasp at the mention of his name. He startled himself so much that his phone threatened to slip out of his hands and collide not so gracefully against the floor. In the blink of an eye, the bulky blond slipped his device inside his jean's pockets and straightened his position to face Bert, sighing in relief as he noticed that it was his childhood friend who asked the question. "Bert, man, you nearly gave me a heart attack. What is it?"

"What are you doing behind the counter?" Bert inquired, crossing his arms.

"I was, uhh... messaging Christa!" Reiner said silently, taking careful glances to his sides to see if anyone had heard it. He rested his arms against the counter for support, rubbing his temples. "Just checking if she and Ymir are coming, that's all."

"Oh?" The taller teen raised both eyebrows, sounding and looking pretty convinced. "Well, they are kinda late. Are they coming though?"

"Yeah, she said that she was on her way." Just as Reiner finished his sentence, they heard a faint knock on the door. "See? Perfect timing."

Reiner removed his arms from the counter and looked at Bert, who nodded once before the duo walked over to their door. The blond seemed quite hesitant to open the door, but he gave in a long breath before twisting the knob. They were both greeted by a blow of cold wind, accompanied by the figures of Christa and Ymir, the petite girl smiling adorably at the hosts while Ymir didn't seem to drop her indifferent expression. She examined the two boys with skeptical eyes.

"Ah, Mr. Muscle and the sweaty skyscraper." Ymir spoke mockingly, a smirk forming on the corners of her lips.

"Ymir!" Christa scolded, her brows furrowing. She attempted to punch her friend on the arm, rather hitting her side considering her short stature. "Don't be so rude to them!"

Ymir's smirk prevailed on her features despite having Christa clearly scowling at her. Well, she did know that Christa wasn't exactly capable of pulling out a perfect, stern face due to her innocent and relatively goddess-like appearance. The taller girl did notice Reiner shooting her a bemused look at the nickname she had invented, while Bert didn't show any signs of being affected save for the drops of sweat forming on his forehead again. Silence reigned around them for a few suffocating moments before Reiner and Bert finally gave space for the newly-arrived guests to enter.

The two newcomers entered the living room rather sluggishly, prompting everyone present there to look up at them. Ymir huffed silently through her nose at the sight, while Christa beamed a great, bright smile at the other guests, followed by a long, "Hello~!"

When her angelical voice literally echoed around the room, nearly every single living soul turned their attention towards Christa. The boys were on the verge of throwing themselves at their knees and bowing deeply before the short girl (Except, of course, for Eren, who confusedly glanced at Christa and then at his legitimately drooling friends not understanding the whole scene on the slightest.), while the only girls in the room simply waved the blonde "hello". Ymir and Christa then made their way across the room quietly, having to seat right between Annie and Armin due to the lack of remaining seats around. Annie didn't really need to move to the opposite side, while on the other hand Armin had to squish himself against Mikasa to allow some space for the duo.

Right after Christa and Ymir made themselves comfortable at the couch despite the little space, Jean finally began the Zombie Survival on the classic map "Nacht Der Untoten". Eren assumed a blank expression while staring directly at the screen, setting his now empty but exaggeratedly grease-smeared plate on his lap, as well putting the now useless controller away to avoid getting it dirty. He carelessly wiped his hands on his hoodie rapidly, just in case his palms were dirty with the excessive oil, and then crossed his arms out of habit, eyes still glued to the screen.

Jean's gameplay went on quite smoothly at first, mainly because the boy decided to take his sweet time during the earlier waves. Somehow, this little did bother Eren, who kept gazing at the screen showing traces of boredom as Jean continued to play. The first waves weren't exactly the most exciting thing ever, obviously. The brunette found the gameplay so boring that he started paying attention to Connie's argument with Ymir on whether COD is a "faggot's game" or not. And Marco's conversation with Bert on how 'Nacht Der Untoten' was creepy. And of course Mikasa, Armin and eventually Krista talking about... something. It was getting nearly impossible to hear with Connie and Ymir gunning each other down with words.

The boy let out a low sigh as his eyes watched the red tally marks on the lower left corner of the screen go from two marks to three. That simple sight almost made him bury his head into his hands. The way Jean played was downright torturous in terms of efficiency, and telling by the shit-eating grin plastered on his face was enough for Eren to realize that he was enjoying himself. He breathed deeply through his nose and watched.

Well, watching the game proved to be way too boring in a matter of seconds. So much that Eren found himself gazing around the room for something of interest to stare at. Reiner's pile of games, no. Ymir and Connie's strangely ridiculous faces as they argued... no.

_Wait._

Eren frowned to no one but himself as he felt a weird sensation coursing through his veins. It wasn't boredom. It was the eerie sensation of having someone staring deep into his skull. He little did care about being subtle with the frown marked on his features as he scanned the room for the source of the pair of eyes potentially attempting to open a hole in his cranium.

His expression softened almost instantaneously when he found who was giving that damned gaze. And oh boy, was he surprised when he recognized the pair of blue orbs focused right on him.

Eren's fiery green orbs came into contact with Annie 's gelid, almost arctic sapphire ones, their stares focusing on one another silently. The boy was completely clueless on why the blonde was looking at him so... directly. Her face, as always, didn't show any signs of emotion, leaving only her lifeless irises gleaming with the ceiling light gazing into his soul. Despite the obvious lack of emotion in her blue eyes, Eren was pretty sure that she wasn't staring off into space.

Because Annie Leonhardt obviously was not the one to stare off into space. Specially while looking directly at someone like Eren Jaeger. _Why the hell is she-_

"My God Jean, you suck!" Connie suddenly spoke up, striking through Eren's train of thought and ultimately killing his 'staring contest' with Annie. The bald boy seemed trouble as he raised his arms high in frustration.

"Shut up, midget!" Jean fired back, leaving the controller on his lap before crossing his arms and glaring hellishly at the screen. "It was a technical error! That door bugged me into the air!"

"Bugged?" Connie raised an eyebrow at the defeated player. "Dude, you jumped straight into a _zombie_!" He added emphasis on the word 'zombie' by making exaggerated movements with his hands. Jean assumed that he was trying to mimic how he died in-game.

"Enough! Who's next?" Jean shook his head, holding the controller up for the next one on the line to grab it. He exhaled deeply through his nose when the device was taken out of his hand by no one other than Sasha Braus.

"Gimme that!" She cheerfully stated, taking a good moment to suck off the remains of grease on her other hand and placing her plate aside. A challenging expression filled her features almost instantly.

Eren quietly snickered as he leaned quite lazily on his seat, confident of his expectations on how Sasha's performance at Zombie Survival would go. He even pulled out a small smile, completely sure that the controller would be in his hands in a matter of a few minutes.

**...**

"Hey guys, I got some more drinks for..." Reiner interrupted himself to rub his eyes with the back of his hands, which were occupied by multiple cans of cold soda. He leaned down and shook his head momentarily to check if the sight right before him was real.

Wave 30.

Sasha just managed to hit wave 30 on Nacht Der Untoten. Reiner's normally narrow eyes widened in surprise as he realized that the girl was still alive in-game, making her character jump around as she waited for the next wave of zombies in the rather pesky corner she just stuck herself into. The tall blond teen turned to face his friends, and the urge to laugh grew inside him so much that he had to grit his teeth together in order to contain himself.

Eren and Jean watched the gameplay utterly flabbergasted, their bodies rigid and backs lightly arched. Their mouths moved eventually, as if they were whispering 'unbelievable' in unison. Bertholdt and Marco didn't even flinch, stares blank as they observed the game in possible awe. Mikasa had to stop her pretty interesting conversation with Armin as the blonde boy curiously assumed a more comfortable position and joined his friends in their surprise-struck watching. Ymir, Christa and Annie were... well, they had no reaction towards the situation all in all.

Aside from Ymir's comments about how she hated the game, of course.

Reiner would ask Sasha about how she managed to stay alive so long in such a tight and relatively troublesome map, but he was still holding ice-cold cans of soda in his bare hands which were dripping water on the floor from the temperature. He quickly nudged Bert with the back of his hand and got rid of two cans as the tallest teen passed the other one to Marco. Reiner then had to stretch his arm a bit further to deliver Eren and Jean their drinks. He made his way around the television to give the last of the cans to the rest of the guests (What made him grin considering how grateful Christa was, for some reason), briefly before he just stood there behind the TV examining how his room was getting full of empty cans and oil-covered plates. Well, he could clean that later.

Satisfied with his 'waiter servicing', Reiner began to look around his dorm for somewhere to sit. An idea sparkled in his head and he started to make his way to his and Bert's bedroom...

When the sound of something falling loudly on the floor filled his ears. He halted his walk almost instantly upon acknowledging that the noise could only come from a falling soda can crashing against the surface. _Oh God, what now..._

"Great one, cabbage hand!" Jean mocked, grinning enormously at Connie who was wide-eyed as he attempted to get a proper grasp on his closed Coke rolling on the floor. His creative use of words caused Eren to snicker alongside Marco and even Armin.

"Hey, it was an accident!" Connie protested, finally being able to hold his drink. He gave it a saddened look knowing that he would shower his surroundings with Coca-Cola in case he decided to open it. "At least it didn't explode!"

Reiner sighed in relief at his words, but was brought back to full attention as Connie stood up with his dented can in hands, facing the closed window that overlooked the school's courtyard. He moved rapidly over to it, receiving confused looks when he opened the window carelessly, shaking a bit from the gelid wind that blew right on his face. Without saying a word, he stuck his arm outside and opened the can in the frigid Autumn air. As expected, the can's content spurted initially before simply dripping down on the grassy courtyard. Connie retracted his arm inside and took a sip on his drink, smiling after swallowing it down.

"See? I'm such a genius." His smile grew to be a grin, and he took another sip, this one being longer. "No harm done to your dorm, Reiner."

"Connie..." Sasha said, pausing the game to face her best friend. The exaggeratedly loud sounds of distorted shrieks and gunfire stopped and the room sank in silence. "You do realize that you could have opened that on the sink, right?"

Connie opened his mouth to reply, but the cogs inside his head were slowly turning to process the information. When realization finally struck him, the bald boy's cheeks flushed with a bright hue of pink out of embarrassment. To avoid getting even more embarrassed, Connie was quick to return to his sitting spot in the living room and make himself comfortable again.

After his scene came to an end, the party resumed and went back to its normal situation: The chatter coming from Christa, Mikasa and Armin, the distorted and pretty disturbing shrieks of the zombies coming from the screen as Sasha managed to professionally fend them off in the game, Eren and Jean returned to their awe-struck state as they went on watching the match. Reiner also joined Bert and Marco in their conversation (Much to Bert's relief), and the room was soon filled again with the mixed sounds of gunfire and chatter.

But of course, a group of friends like theirs wasn't able of achieving peace for long periods of time.

Connie soon found himself bored in matter of mere minutes. Attempting to get into a conversation with Sasha wouldn't bring him anywhere, since the girl proved that chat could worsen her performance during her gameplays in their dorm during their first week. He sighed through his nose and turned to face Jean...

And there was his salvation from boredom.

Just next to Jean's legs, a phone, probably an Iphone due to its distinct design, was idly laying on the couch's surface. Connie shot a devilish grin, knowing well that the cellphone was Jean's since he had seen it numerous times before, and the colors didn't lie to him. The perfect getaway from his lack of things to do. The bald boy took one last look at his friend just to be sure that he wasn't paying attention, and stretched out his hand to grasp for it.

Once feeling the device firmly on his hands, the short boy rapidly retracted his arm back to himself, hiding the 'stolen' object in his arms. He surveyed the room with his eyes for a second; No one seemed to even notice his action. He wasted no time in pressing the home button, making the screen shine with bright white light from the pretty extravagant background Jean had set up. Connie saw a few texts coming from people that he barely even knew, some of those being from their band of friend's WhatsApp group, and some missed calls. No, that wasn't important. Maybe, if he managed to-

"Connie!" Jean's voice made the boy tinkering with the phone audibly gasp in surprise. "Give my goddamned phone back!"

The moment Connie faced Jean, he caught sight of the latter's beet red face along with his downright furious expression burning in his eyes. Jean was preparing himself to lunge for his device, visibly showing to his bald friend that he had some secrets that had to remain uncovered somewhere in his phone. Connie, however, knew that he was in for a good beating if he kept the Iphone in his hands for too long, now having to use his free left hand to fend off Jean's flailing arms desperately trying to get what's his.

Well, the baldie already knew what to do. Throw the phone directly at _Eren Jaeger._

Eren's face was washed with bewilderment upon feeling something coming into contact with his lap. He got hold of it, examining the phone in his hand in a baffled manner. The brunette then looked up, as if on cue to meet Jean glaring at him with an even darker and murderous light in his light brown eyes, all while still holding Connie's hands in place.

"Jaeger..."

"Hell, no!" Eren mocked openly, raising his arm up high, his emerald orbs gleaming with defiance.

Eren threw the phone across the room as fast as he could, and it landed perfectly on where Ymir was seating. Of course, Eren wasn't that much of an idiot to hand the phone to someone who would end all the fun. This was the perfect opportunity to mock Jean, and he was going to enjoy every single second of it.

Jean grunted loudly as his phone flew over his head and again out of his reach. He mentally cursed Eren and Connie for their little strategy to keep this "Monkey in the Middle" game going on. It was obvious that neither of them would throw the phone to someone such as Armin or Marco, who were now watching the poor cellphone being examined by Ymir's stoic eyes. Jean turned to face her, like if he was a predator searching for his prey. Much to his surprise, though, Ymir suddenly flashed a smirk and threw the device back to Connie, apparently not wanting to involve herself in the situation.

What Connie wasn't expecting was Jean's almost instant comeback. Just when the bald boy got a good grip around the device, Jean suddenly threw himself after him, gritting his teeth furiously. Since Connie was already sitting on the floor, Jean didn't even have to make an effort in order to pin the shorter teen to the ground. Everyone in the room focused their attention on them, wondering on what they were up to. Armin and Marco were especially worried, shown by their wide eyes and rigid bodies.

"Give it back, Springer!" Jean demanded, sending a death glare towards his subdued friend. He used his left arm to hold Connie's right arm in place, while his right hand desperately tried to grasp for his Iphone.

Of course, said Springer wasn't going to just surrender and then brace himself to the possible beating that would follow. Instead, he moved his free arm backwards as much as he could, groaning all the way as Jean began to get the upper hand in their position. Suddenly, Connie jerked his arm forward, launching the phone out of his grip and into the air.

Time seemed to slow down for the guests in Reiner's room as the cellphone proved to have achieved way more altitude than they could have ever believed. They all watched with a mixture of confusion, panic and surprise as Jean's most recent acquisition soared through the air...

And went right through the open window.

Almost as if on cue, every single body in the room stood up at once, all of them facing at the open window. Jean's mouth was left hanging open in desperation as he made his way back to his feet, leaving Connie to do the same. A faint ***Thump* **came from the outside, signaling that the Iphone made its unfortunate crash-landing. Silence reigned briefly in the room, showing that no one dared to open their mouths in order to comment about the scene they just witnessed.

That is, until Jean faced the one guilty for such an 'accident' with one of the most hideous looks he could even muster. Connie audibly gasped when his taller friend grabbed him by his sweatshirt's collar. Much to Jean's annoyance, he heard Eren snickering quite loudly at his rival's misery. Even Reiner had to muffle his laughter in order to not be decapitated by the enraged boy.

"You fucking dipshit! I'm going to kil-"

"H-hey guys, don't fight, please!" A voice begged, quickly indentified as Christa's. The short blonde was on her tiptoes, peering out of the window and down on wherever Reiner's room overlooked. "The phone is still okay!"

Jean instantly released his grip on Connie's collar and his expression softened, as if a wave of relief washed over him. Connie, on the other hand, dropped to his knees the second he was released, taking refuge right next to Sasha on the couch. For a moment there, one could notice that he decided to put his future vendetta with the bald boy later in the back of his mind.

Without a word being said, Jean rushed over to the window in the blink of an eye. Christa stepped away as fast as she could, apprehensive on whether Jean had already calmed down or not. Jean placed his hands forcefully against the window's frame, sticking his head outside with expectant eyes. It didn't take much time for the boy to notice that Reiner's room overlooked the school's courtyard, rather than the streets. That simple fact made him a lot more relaxed.

Eren and Armin joined Jean on the window right afterwards, their heads peering out on the corners of Jean's figure. Suddenly, the 'horse-faced' teen pointed his finger at something laying on top of a relatively soft patch of grass. The phone's screen reflected some of the moon's pale light, making it stand out in the dark, empty area.

"Damn, Jean. Didn't know that horses could be that lucky!" Eren stated, flashing a smirk at his friend.

"Shut up, Jaeger. Or I'll throw you head-first down there." Jean fired back between gritted teeth, not removing his eyes from his beloved device. "We need to get it back!"

Jean faced the rest of the guests, earning confused glances and raised eyebrows.

"Get it back?" Eren raised an eyebrow, though his lips curled in a mocking smirk. The green-eyed teen was clearly enjoying this situation.

"I doubt that you would be able to just walk through the door and go down there without being seen." Reiner explained, finally managing to cover the urge of laughing in his stomach. "Maybe you could... Bert, what time is it?"

Bert was so shocked by the whole "Jean's phone just happened to fly out of the window and is now sitting on a patch of grass" that he gave a little jump at the mention of his name. Taking a moment to swipe out the bead of sweat on his forehead, Bertholdt shoved his hand in his pocket and took out his own phone (What almost made Reiner face-palm, considering that his best friend was standing right next to the clock). His eyes grew wide for a moment.

"It's... um... 9:50PM already." He replied, giving Reiner a worried look.

Reiner's eyes too grew as large as dinner plates at the information he just heard. The tall blond kept staring at Bert like if he had grown an extra head, not immediately believing that curfew had started roughly 2 hours ago.

"It has been 2 hours since curfew started?!" Eren exclaimed, taking his head out of the window.

"Perfect!"Jean threw his arms up, still not leaving the window. He groaned pretty angrily afterwards, what made Connie shrink even more next to Sasha fearing what his horse-faced friend would do to him once this was over.

"I-isn't it better if we waited till tomorrow?" Marco butted in, stuttering nervously. Armin nodded his head frantically in agreement. "Like, it's not like if anyone would grab it, right?"

"I think that wouldn't be the best choice, Marco." Reiner alerted. "Finding your lost stuff at the 'Lost and Found' section is very... difficult. Trust me on that one."

"Great." Jean breathed deeply in frustration. That was his _brand new_ Iphone, and now it had flown out of the window because of a stupid game that a certain bald boy started. "You know what? I'm climbing down there."

The whole room stared at him incredulously, but the young Kirstein didn't even care: He took one calculating look down at the grassy school courtyard, as if trying to guess the altitude of the wall. From what he noticed, it wasn't nothing deadly. Well, _apparently_ not deadly. Jean could still break an arm or a leg, but it would be worth it. Maybe not. But anything to save his poor phone.

Jean was no free-runner, but he noticed that the building's walls were pretty detailed with multiple horizontals ledges that could possibly help him with dropping down, and more specifically, making him go back up. _Perfect. Time to go down there Assassin-style!_

"J-Jean!" Marco called out, taking a few steps towards his friend. "Dude, please! You're not going to do that, are you?"

Jean bit his lower lip and started raising his right leg up to the window's frame, almost completely ignoring Marco's complaint. He then managed to place his foot on the higher surface, balancing himself in a weird position. "Of course I am! That thing is brand new! I just can't give up on it!"

Reiner narrowed his eyes, nearing the window slowly as he observed a large grin growing on both Eren's and Ymir's face. Christa's expression was in complete contrast with them, since the little girl looked absolutely terrified and worried about the outcome of Jean's plan. Marco and Armin watched in a mixture of disbelief and shock, contemplating whether he was truly going to climb down Reiner's dorm window to the goddamned courtyard. And to complete the weirdness of the scene, Annie and Mikasa remained as stoic as they could be.

Jean was now halfway on his process of sitting on the window frame, his legs dangling over the empty courtyard as he bent down slightly to prevent hitting his head against the wall. Eren and Ymir now stared wide-eyed at the boy, retaining their smirks as he insisted in going on despite Reiner's protests. At this point, Bertholdt left the scene to go to the bathroom in order to dry off the excessive sweat off of his forehead.

"Oh God, this is going to be the best thing I'll ever see." Eren commented, watching as his rival now slowly turned his body back to the inside in order to make a safer descent.

Tuning out of Reiner's stern warnings and Marco's pledging cries, Jean swiftly moved a leg out of the room, and then the other, putting his body at an awkward angle. Hesitantly, he forcefully grasped on the windowsill's ledge while removing his buttocks out of the frame, stomach freezing up as he realized that had to rely on sheer strength to not fall to his death. When his waist had already passed through the 'window level', Jean gasped loudly as his body immediately went down, saved only by his hands grabbing strongly at the ledge. His body swayed from the left to the right, feet desperately trying to find another ledge to support on.

"Great one, horseface." Eren whispered from above, his head peering out of the window and his green eyes staring down at Jean teasingly.

Reiner quickly appeared by Eren's side. The bulky teen sighed deeply and closed his eyes. "Okay, you're already knee deep in this thing, Jean." His eyes darted around the silent courtyard, searching for anyone wandering in the shadows. "For God's sake... grab your damned phone and get up here as fast as possible. Me and Eren will help you up."

Now breathing hard and nervously, Jean nodded in acknowledgement at Reiner, and then looked down at his body. He was still swaying, his feet missing the lower ledge by mere centimeters. He then focused on the ground; It was not very far, but still it gave him the impression that dropping from there wouldn't be the wisest decision. Struggling for a few seconds, Jean finally managed to stop his body's dangerous dangling by using his right foot to force his halt. He sucked in a long breath and gazed down.

Confusion dawned on him as he slowly realized that there was no way possible to reach for the ground quite safely. Of course not. The other ledge was ridiculously next to the ground, so trying to set foot on them would be useless. However, the gap between the one where his feet rested and the one closer to the grassy floor was pretty much impossible to cover in his situation. Jean, however, decided to try his best at lowering his body in order to reach for the lower surface as quickly as he could.

Too bad that his sweaty hands slipped right when he was performing such move.

Jean landed with a relatively low ***thud***, the back of his waist taking in most of the impact. Once his back came into contact with the ground, he emptied his lungs in surprise, staring rather blankly at Eren and Reiner. Well, Eren was obviously muffling his laughter while Reiner grimaced in worry at the fall he just witnessed. Jean waved a dismissive hand at them both, signaling that, despite the sharp pain at his waist, he was okay. Apparently, no bones were broken.

Once he regained his composure, Jean took a good glance at his surroundings; He was bathed in faint moonlight, though bright enough to cast a weak shadow on the courtyard. He examined every direction with caution, searching with an horrified expression for anyone from the school's staff that could jeopardize his operation. Presuming that he was safe due to the eerie silence, Jean crouched down to be a harder target to be spotted. Jean sluggishly, stealthily crawled towards his cellphone, eyes fixated on the device reflecting the moon's pale light.

Eren and Reiner sighed in relief as Jean reached out for his phone and grabbed it, rapidly storing the device inside his jean's pockets. The boy again scanned the area for any possible threats, face marked with fear of being discovered. Once he was done surveying the courtyard, he gazed up to his two friends, who were doing terrible mimics of running movements. Jean quickly understood what they meant as soon as both teens stuck out their arms, waiting to grasp for his hands. Jean swallowed the lump in his throat and prepared himself.

His light brown eyes calculated the small distance between himself and the brick wall, taking note that he could use the lower ledge to propel his body up to reach for his friend's hands. He then lowered his figure a bit, readying up for a sprint. Giving a mental 'go!', Jean ran for short 2 seconds before having to jump in order to avoid collision with the wall, kicking the lower ledge in midair to launch himself higher up.

While still going up, Jean threw both arms up, grasping his hands against Reiner's and Eren's, who had to use both hand to keep Jean in place. Much to Jean's despair, when he managed to get a hold on the sweaty palms of his friends, his torso slammed against the wall brutally, knocking the air out of his lungs and critically loosening his grasp on his only way of escape. Both teens holding their poor comrade with their arm's strength groaned, gritting their teeth together as they invoked all of their muscle power to pull Jean up.

Jean decided to help his rescuers by attempting to use his feet as boosters in his painful climb back to Reiner's room. He forced a smile as soon as his technique and his comrade's strength succeeded in bringing his upper torso onto the windowsill, even if he had the impression that they would end up letting him go due to how sweaty their hands were. He used that presumption to assist himself in using his legs more efficiently in the climb, what boosted his salvage from the dark courtyard.

After many groans and grunts of effort, Jean finally dropped inside the room, his knees crashing against the wooden floor followed by his hands to prevent his head from crashing on the surface. Eren and Reiner recoiled the moment they let go of Jean, rubbing their hands in pain trying to get that awful burning sensation out of their palms. A wave of relief washed over the rest of the guests, and even Annie seemed surprised that they managed to accomplish such a thing.

Jean sat down on the floor cross-legged, ignoring as Marco ran to check on him. He fished in his pocket for a good second and pulled out his phone, staring at its intactness with happy eyes.

He could postpone Connie's execution for now.

**...**

"Reiner, are you sure that we'll be able to do this?"

The blond exhaled through his nose, not removing his head out of his best friend's bag as he dug inside it for something that could help him in his current situation.

"I don't know, Bert. I'm not even sure if we'll be able to house 10 more people inside this dorm..."

Bert gulped as he heard his friends laughing over something in the living room, their laughter loud enough to reach for his bedroom. Jean's relationship with Connie was repaired, but not without some verbal battles. The group's state was pretty peculiar; They were all playing Uno, swearing and cursing at each other openly with slurred, sleepy speech that resembled a drunkard's words. Much to the dorm's owners relief, Sasha was devouring the remaining pizzas. Only now the freshmen noticed how tired they were from their first week at school.

Sadly, just going out through the door wasn't an option now that curfew was already on. The group had the misfortune to discover that who patrolled the dormitory hallway was no one other than Keith Shadis. Connie and Sasha discovered that through the hard way.

Reiner suddenly stopped his shuffling through Bertholdt's bag, what caused the taller one to perk his head up. "What have you found?"

"Dude..." Reiner raised out of the bag in a dramatic style, taking with him a dark blue sack. "Why do you have a sleeping bag inside your stuff?"

"Umm... it wasn't me who prepared everything. It was my mom..." He quickly wiped off some sweat out of his forehead.

Reiner didn't comment, searching further inside the bag's contents, impressed to find a second sleeping bag inside. Considering that he was in need to make 12 people sleep in the same place, the more sleep-related things he found, the better. But he was still surprised when he actually took _4 _sleeping sacks out of the luggage. "Damn, Bert. Never thought that your like for camping would be so useful now..."

"Well, we just gotta, you know, divide the beds and the couch in a correct way." Bert scratched his chin in thought, looking at the ceiling. "If they cram themselves a bit, four people can sleep at the couches, two at each bed, and the four remaining in the sleeping sacks!" He smiled, but then it faltered when he a detail came into mind. "Well, only if someone is comfortable with sleeping in the same space with another person..."

"I'm pretty sure that I know who won't have a problem with that." Reiner stated seriously as he frowned at nothing in particular, a certain thought floating in his mind. A thought that he greatly disliked.

**...**

After Reiner and Bertholdt explained the situation to everyone while the group was nearly falling asleep with Uno cards in their hands, they came to an agreement: Eren and Mikasa would sleep in the same couch, and so would Armin and Annie. On the floor next to the sofas, Connie and Sasha would sleep in the sacks, while Jean and Marco would use the remaining ones to sleep inside the bedroom. Bert and Reiner would share a bed (Even if Reiner is well aware of the awkward positions that his friend could get into), same going for Christa and Ymir. Reiner wasn't exactly happy about that decision, but, well, he couldn't complain about it. Christa appeared to be magnetically attached to Ymir, for some reason.

At the moment, everyone was readying themselves for a good night's sleep, all covered in the extra blankets that belonged to Reiner and Bertholdt. The rooms were shrouded in darkness, but even like that Reiner could feel Ymir staring at him, eyes dripping with mockery.

"Hey guys." Connie called out for everyone all out of sudden, abruptly interrupting everybody in their process of resting.

"Yeah?" Eren asked, not sounding very amused.

"I just wanted to tell you all something..." He took a torturously long pause. "Shrek is love... Shrek... is life..."

A series of snorts sounded around the room, most of their owners trying to crazily impede themselves from bursting out in hysterical fits of laughter. Defeated, someone ended up giving in, and even if no one could make out who was laughing so maniacally, they ended up roaring with laughter as well. Armin remained quiet, not understanding the reason of his friends' exaggerated amusement.

He waited patiently till the laughter died, and asked, "Guys, what is this "Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life" thing? Eren talked about it for a good while, but I never had the time to find out..."

"You wouldn't like to know." Jean alerted, still snickering.

"It's... a video." Reiner gave one last snort before sucking in a lungful of oxygen to recover himself.

"Where a kid worships Shrek." Connie completed. "Shrek suddenly appears inside his room after said kid is berated by his dad, and, well... Shrek has butt-sex with him..."

Eren and Jean lost it again, both of them sinking their faces on the nearest soft surface around in order to not disturb the neighbors. Armin's face contorted in disgust, and apparently, Connie managed to notice that.

"I see that we just destroyed his childhood..." He laughed quietly, biting his lip to control himself. "Welcome to the club, Armin."

"Is there a video of the second part of the kid's adventure?" Sasha asked, surprising the whole room.

"Nope, I guess." Connie responded, since Reiner was regaining his mature composure, and Eren and Jean were still killing laughing wildly in their pillows. "Have you all watched the third par-"

"Can we just stop talking about ogres robbing children's anal virginity and just... sleep?" Marco suddenly snapped, strangely not sounding completely angry. The whole room nodded in approval even though they couldn't exactly see each other.

"That sounds just great..." Bert's tired voice sounded off, accompanied by a long yawn.

Eren stopped laughing the moment Mikasa kicked him in the leg, while Jean ceased his snickers after Marco stuck his arm out and punched his lightly on the arm. The room was taken by a dead silence, save for the wind whistling very sinisterly outside. Some of the freshmen still shuffled a bit in their beds (Reiner and Bert for example, considering their massive heights and the fact that they were unfortunately sharing a bed due to the current circumstances), but soon settled down to rest.

Annie rolled her eyes in annoyance at Eren's lack of maturity (Or rather the immaturity shown by all the boys inside the dorm), regretting her choice of sleeping on the right side of the couch instead of the opposite one. That made her very aware of Eren snoring, which came only a few seconds after the boy fell asleep. The blonde girl shook her head, gripped a bit tightly around her blanket, and then undid her hair, allowing her golden strands to drape over her face and even on her shoulders. She was sure that no one would be able to see her like this, and at this point, she could care less about being seen with her hair untied.

As she closed her eyes and felt sleep taking over, Annie hoped that tomorrow arrived quickly. God knows what might happen on the next morning...

**...**

_**Okay, lemme apologize to you all for the delay. And of course, for the possible lack of quality in this chapter. I tried my best to fight against the writer's block, and well, I think that this is the result. I'm sorry if it isn't what you all expected. Please, leave a review so that I can improve!**_


End file.
